The Name and the Sign

A Persian passage attributed to Hubbi on recognising a spiritual teacher

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Bismi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi.
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful.

A short Persian passage attributed to the Kashmiri Sufi poet Hubbi asks a question about a spiritual teacher: who is he, and by what signs may he be recognised? The poet asks for his qualities, his splendour, and his name. The passage eventually names Shāh Yaʿqūb, understood in its reported context as Shaykh Yaqub Sarfi.

Hubbi was the poetic name of Khwaja Habibullah Nowshehri of Srinagar, who lived in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The British Library catalogues a Persian Dīvān under his name. The particular lines considered here come through a modern newspaper article, rather than a Persian manuscript or an edition checked for this post.^[1]

Textual note: The Persian below is a tentative reconstruction from the romanization printed in Kashmir Images in 2024. An earlier version differs in several places. The wording and translation therefore remain provisional.^[2]

بیا حُبّی مگو دیگر فسانه
بگو اوصاف آن پیرِ یگانه

Biyā Ḥubbī magū dīgar fasāna;
Begū awṣāf-e ān pīr-e yagāna.

Come, Hubbi, tell no other tale;
speak of the qualities of that peerless spiritual master.

The poet addresses himself. There is something intimate in that movement: he calls his own attention back to a person whose guidance matters to him. The opening gives the praise a relationship. A pupil is preparing to speak of his teacher.

شهنشاهی به مُلکِ مُرشدی کیست
فرّ و نام و نشان هم بگو چیست

Shahanshāhī ba mulk-e murshidī kīst?
Farr o nām o nishān ham begū chīst?

Who is sovereign in the domain of spiritual guidance?
Tell, too, of his splendour, his name, and his distinguishing sign.

This is an interpretive English rendering of the proposed Persian. Murshid means a guide and, in Sufi usage, a spiritual teacher; murshidī is understood here as spiritual guidance or the function of such a teacher. Farr carries meanings of splendour, dignity, and radiance. Beside the image of a sovereign, “splendour” preserves the elevated tone of the praise. Nishān can mean a sign or identifying mark: something by which a person or thing is recognised.^[3]

The later couplet supplies a name. Its first half-line is too unclear in the online transcription to reconstruct responsibly, so I leave that portion untranslated. Its closing half-line can provisionally be read:

بود نامِ شریفش شاه یعقوب

Buvad nām-e sharīfash Shāh Yaʿqūb.
His honoured name is Shāh Yaʿqūb.^[4]

The teacher being praised is understood as Shaykh Yaqub Sarfi (1521–1595), the Kashmiri scholar and Sufi teacher with whom, according to the newspaper account, Hubbi studied.^[5] The movement of the quotation is thus quite specific: the poet calls himself to speak, asks who the teacher is, and gives his name.

A translation that turns this into a question about “kingship without a kingdom” and “guidance without a guide” changes that movement. The romanized be is not precise enough by itself to establish the intended Persian word. In this context I provisionally read it as به, “in” or “within,” rather than بی, “without.”

The strongest clues are kīst, “who is?”, and the subsequent naming of Shāh Yaʿqūb. There are also no corresponding words for “without a guide” in the quoted passage. These clues favour a question identifying the praised teacher. An authoritative Persian text would still be needed to settle the wording.

Sources and textual notes

1. Poet and attribution. British Library, manuscript Or 7586, catalogues a Persian Dīvān of Ḥubbī and gives the author’s dates as 1556–1618. This supports his identity and Persian literary activity; it does not authenticate these particular lines. Their immediate source here is Prof. Bashir Ahmad Dar’s article in Kashmir Images, 28 June 2024. British Library catalogue | 2024 article.
2. Variant wording. Dar’s 2021 version has afsana and zamana where the 2024 version has fasana and yagana. The central half-line also differs substantially. These related newspaper versions cannot substitute for checking a manuscript or reliable Persian edition. The reconstructed script follows the 2024 version, with selective pronunciation marks; it is not presented as a verified original. 2021 article.
3. Vocabulary and translation. Dehkhodā’s dictionary supports the meanings discussed for murshid, farr, and nishān. Reading murshidī as the activity or office of a spiritual guide is contextual. “His” in the English is supplied from the context. Murshid | Farr | Nishān.
4. Incomplete couplet. The preceding half-line remains unresolved. The romanization also leaves بود open to būd (“was”) or poetic buvad (“is”); the rendering above adopts the latter provisionally.
5. Sarfi and Hubbi’s account of him. For Sarfi’s scholarly setting, see Ghazi Nazir Naqash, “Maṭlab al-Ṭālibīn: A Milestone in the Development of Tafsīr Literature in Kashmir,” Jurnal Studi Ilmu-ilmu Al-Qur’an dan Hadis 26, no. 1 (2025), 217–240. A bibliographic record for Mohammad Ashraf Fazili’s 2021 English translation of Hubbi’s Maqāmāt-i Eishān describes a Persian verse original composed in 1011 AH/1602 CE about Sarfi. The exact location of the quoted lines in that work has not been verified, so I do not assign them to it. The paired rhymes are characteristic of masnavi verse; the unstable wording does not justify a definite claim about metre. Scholarly article | Translation’s bibliographic record.