Carl Ernst
Albany: SUNY Press, 1991.
ISBN: 0-7914-3150-9

"Eternal Garden," the title used by Carl Ernst to refer to Khuldabad, a prominent Sufi center of the Chishti order in the Deccan region of India, is a phrase borrowed from the first line of a poem by the Persian poet Hâfiz (d.1332) which declares: "The cloister of the Dervishes is an eternal garden." The subject of this book is thus Khuldabad and particularly the Chishti school of Sufis led by the dervish to whom its origin is ascribed, namely Burhan al-Din Gharib (d.738/1337). Significantly, the Chishti order which in Delhi had earned a reputation for being independent of the state, was not so clearly defined in Khuldabad, where one also finds the tombs of sultans such as Aurungzeb, the notoriously dogmatic Mughal ruler. Essentially Eternal Garden is a case study of the interaction of mysticism, politics and history in this particular location.
    Carl Ernst's thesis is that the notion that sufi saints were responsible for the conversion of a large number of Indians to Islam is untenable. According to Ernst, the Chishtis of Khuldabad, for instance, were NOT involved in any conscious missionary activity designed to convert non-Muslims to Islam. Rather their's was a teaching of interiorization oriented not even to the ordinary Muslim, and meaningful only to a spiritual elite who knew and practised the basic tenets of Islam.
    Whether on agrees with Ernst's thesis or not, the methodology used by Ernst is new and certainly worth considering: It speaks of an empathetic scholar who is only too familiar with the complexities of India, and wants to recreate the milieu of the early sources--be they the authentic malfuzât texts of disciples, or the hagiographic responses of later devotees-- which inform him of the significance of Khuldabad. Realizing the inadequacy of the latter as historical documents, Ernst suggests that one should read the sufi texts historiographically, so as to restore the original political context of each document.
    The fact is that Ernst recognizes, as well, the prejudicial values ingrained in the court chronicles of the Tughluq era. It is from these that we learn of the compulsory and unhappy events which saw the transfer of the sultan's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in the Deccan, which in turn led to the significance of Khuldabad if not its very creation. But Ernst contests the picture of the aggressive Islamic state painted by these chroniclers. Indeed he disagrees with the notion that Islam was the religion of the state, and asserts that the state in fact contributed to the maintenance of numerous Hindu and Jain temples as well. To appreciate the exact nature of religion in India, he suggests that the documents of Khuldabad be used to modify the information communicatd by the chronicles. Thus by closely examining the perspectives of all the available textual materials on Khuldabad, and then plotting their trajectories through history, he tries to come to an understanding of how Islam was actually practised in Khuldabad, and hence in so called "Muslim India."
    Eternal Garden is an important text because of the vision it offers regarding the interpretation of sufi literature which is undoubtedly heavy with symbolic meaning. The book is difficult, however, not only because of the ambitious nature of Ernst's methodology, but also because of the very complex civilization of the Indian subcontinent. To me it signifies a more realistic approach to what Islam in India was probably about.