THE SUFI’S NIGHTINGALE

In a small house beneath a mosque in the Bazaar e Husn, home to the pleasure houses of sixteenthcentury Lahore, lives an unusual band of Sufis. Known all over the city for their startling red robes and shaven faces, they are seen singing and dancing wantonly every evening as they make their way through the streets to a maikhana, their favourite tavern. Their master, a former Islamic scholar now disowned by the clergy, is Lal Hussain, whose exquisite poems— sung by his dearest disciple Maqbool, a young man from the oppressed Marassi community—have begun to win the hearts of thousands of ordinary Lahoris, despite his notoriety. Into this world strides Madho, a handsome Brahmin boy from Shahdara, across the Ravi River, who comes to seek the favours of Amba, the most famous courtesan of Lahore. Lal Hussain is smitten the moment he lays eyes on Madho, and this sets in motion a saga of passionate love, heartbreak, scandal, mystical experience and, ultimately, spiritual triumph, as Lal Hussain becomes Shah Hussain, the king of faqirs. The Sufi’s Nightingale is a fictionalized retelling of the life of the sixteenthcentury mystic and poet of Punjab, Shah Hussain, who was a malamati—a Sufi who actively debased himself, choosing a lifestyle that would earn him rejection and abuse, as a means of conquering his ego. Over time, the very identities of Hussain and Madho merged, and today the great Sufi is known as Madho Lal Hussain. Hussain and Madho lie in the same mausoleum outside Lahore, which is the site of the annual Mela Chiragan during which thousands gather to revel in song, dance and worship. Told in the voices of Hussain and his bulbul, Maqbool, The Sufi’s Nightingale is among the most moving and beautiful novels about the wonders and mysteries of love and faith that you will read.