few weeks ago, there was a buzz surrounding the idea of re-imagining Pakistan, a topic that holds great personal significance for me. I believe that Pakistan has the potential to become a culturally diverse and inclusive nation, one that upholds the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution and boasts robust civilian institutions that guarantee freedom of speech and action.

As I pondered these issues, I began considering the contributions of a few of our founding fathers who have inspired us. Among these cultural icons, Amir Khusrau stands out as the greatest that (Muslim) North India has ever produced.

Given India’s current embrace of the Hindutva ideology, the cultural synergy of the Nehruvian era has been laid to rest. It is now time for Pakistan to focus on people like Amir Khusrau and explore their literary and cultural influences on the regions that make up our country. With this in mind, I offer these words as a tribute to this remarkable individual.

During the Sultanate rule, Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) emerged as a cultural icon in Northern India, where several socio-cultural strands seemed to have converged within him. He was a man of many talents, including poetry, music, courtier-ship, Sufism, scholarship and historiography. Moreover, he epitomised the cultural amalgamation of Hindu and Muslim traditions, perching on a unique position in the 13^th Century Indian context.

At that time, most Indian Muslims considered Khorasan their homeland and remained indifferent to the Indian culture and religion. For Khusrau, however, India was his beloved homeland and he was drawn towards the country’s beauty and cultural richness, which he regarded as superior to any other place. On many occasions, he proudly represented and defended the beauty of Delhi over Bukhara, Khwarzim and Baghdad, earning the admiration of all.

Khusrau was equally proud of Indian and Turk cultures and his writings signify a remarkable synthesis of the two. He wrote extensively in Persian, remarking that the language spoken and written in India was far superior to that used in Khorasan, Sistan, and Azerbaijan. Moreover, he was the first to express his patriotic love and passion for India through his poetry, which he crafted with great care and skill.

Khusrau lived a long and eventful life, serving under seven rulers. He was most attached to the court of Ala-ud Din Khilji, where he completed his famous literary project, the khamsah, earning high praise from critics like Jami. Khusrau’s life and legacy continue to inspire us today, reminding us of the enduring power of cultural synthesis and the importance of patriotic fervor in our lives.

According to Aziz Ahmad, Amir Khusrau’s poetry in the Hindi language is limited to the verses he used in the introduction of his diwan, Ghurrat al-Kamal. However, Khusrau’s deep understanding and proficiency in multiple languages, including Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Hindi allowed him to experiment with various forms of poetry and prose. He is widely regarded as the creator of a new type of historical epic.

Khusrau’s contribution to the development of the Urdu language is a matter of debate among scholars. While Hafiz Mehmood Sherani did not attribute the famous work Khaliq Bari to Khusrau, Jamil Jalibi and Gopi Chand Narang consider it to be his work. Tabassum Kashmiri, in his book Urdu Adab Ki Tareekh, suggests that instead of discussing the quantity of Hindavi poetry written by Khusrau, we should acknowledge him as one of the foremost cultural icons of the subcontinent.

Khusrau is known as a bridge between Hindu and Muslim cultures. He is considered the founder of Muslim identity in India by accepting and assimilating the culture of Hind. Waheed Mirza argues that Khusrau is unique in that he embodies the fusion of the two separate cultures accepting and assimilating each other. This view is supported by Gopi Chand Narang. Khusrau’s synthesis of Turko-Persian and indigenous cultural elements is a symbol of Pakistan’s cultural diversity and social pluralism. Unfortunately, Khusrau’s influence on contemporary Pakistan is mostly superficial.

For all these institutional similarities between Muslim and non-Muslim states, Muslim dynasties did chart new directions. For over 600 years following the establishment of the first Turkic dynasty in Delhi by the Mamluk or slave ruler, Qutb-ud Din Aibak in 1206, the language of the Muslim ruling elite was Persian. “As participants in a Persian-speaking culture that stretched into Central and South-West Asia, these dynasties were a conduit for introducing innovations in ruling institutions, as well as distinctive cultural traditions in law, political theory and literary and religious styles.”

They also brought practical innovations in mounted warfare, cropping patterns and irrigation techniques, like the widespread Persian wheel. They fostered urban growth and road networks that encouraged trade within the region and beyond.

Arabic-speaking Muslims had been present much earlier in the subcontinent, establishing a kingdom in Sindh in the lower Indus Valley in 711 when Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh by defeating Raja Dahir. That, in fact, was the expansion project of the Umayyad dynasty based in Damascus.

Some Muslims of Arabian descent had migrated and settled by the Eighth Century as traders along the Malabar coast of the southwest, where they intermarried and “sustained distinctive cultural forms forged from their Arab ties and local setting, and in so doing helped link al-Hind to seaborne trade routes.”

In the years from roughly 1200 to 1500, the movement of goods and peoples through the Indian Ocean ports as well as overland through the Persian-speaking lands, constituted the “Islamic world system” as Janet Abu-Lughod has characterised this period. Participation in these ruling and trading networks did not necessitate that individual be Muslim. However, Muslim political expansion facilitated the success of the whole.

Another pattern that featured early in the Sultanate period was the enduring ethnic and linguistic pluralism that both the ruling elites and the ruled, assimilated. The rulers comprised not only those of Turkish heritage but also Afghan, Persian and native-born as well as immigrants from afar. Amir Khusrau epitomised that trend that successfully dispelled monolithic ideology.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore. He can be reached at tahir.kamran@bnu.edu.pk