Sarmad

Sarmad (Sarmad Kashani) was a Persian-Jewish merchant who became Delhi’s naked fakir-saint, beheaded under Aurangzeb in 1661 and canonized by the very city that executed him.

Life

Born a Jewish merchant of Kashan, Sarmad traveled to Sind in trade, fell in love with a Hindu boy, Abhay Chand, and through that love to mystical utterance: his quatrains declare him beyond all scriptures — Torah, Vedas, Qur’an read together in the Beloved. Arriving in Delhi, he walked naked in the state of contemplation; Prince Dara Shikoh received him as a master. After Aurangzeb took the throne and executed Dara, Sarmad’s refusal to conform — he completed the shahada’s negation (“There is no god”) and said the rest was not yet true for him — brought his execution. The hagiography says his severed head ran up the stairs chanting the completion.

Teachings/Works

His Persian Rubaiyat — mystical quatrains of love beyond religious identity — circulated widely; Dara Shikoh’s circle treasured them.

Legacy

His dargah beside the Jama Masjid in Delhi remains a living shrine, famous for prayers answered — the courtesans’ shrine of Delhi’s folklore — and a symbol of the mystic whom orthodoxy killed and devotion crowned.

Verification notes

• Life is documented in Mughal-era sources and Sufi hagiography; the head-legend is hagiographic.
• Audited against Wikipedia (September 2026).