ohn Donne (1572–1631) and Abdul Qadir Bedil (1644–1720) emerged as titanic figures within their respective cultural, linguistic and historical milieus. A close reading of their oeuvres reveals profound convergences in thematic preoccupations. Both poets, hailing from disparate epochs – Donne as a leading metaphysical poet of late Sixteenth- and early Seventeenth-Century England, and Bedil as an eminent Persian poet rooted in the Sufi tradition of Seventeenth-Century Mughal India – demonstrate a shared engagement with universal motifs of love, spirituality and the intricate dynamics of human existence. While Donne’s poetry is marked by an intellectual engagement with metaphysical and philosophical questions, Bedil’s Sufi-inflected poetics are steeped in ontological inquiry and the metaphysical dimensions of divine love.

Both poets explore love as a transformative and omnipotent force, delving into its complexities and transcendence. Donne often merges the corporeal and spiritual aspects of love, portraying it as integrative and redemptive. In The Broken Heart, he emphasises love’s visceral power through dramatic and paradoxical imagery:

He is stark mad, whoever says

That he hath been in love an hour,

Yet not that love so soon decays,

But that it can ten in less space devour.

Donne portrays love as an immediate, cataclysmic force that devours hearts instantly, emphasising its voracious and involuntary, almost predatory nature. A strikingly similar sentiment is discernible in Bedil’s poetic reflections, particularly in the following couplet:

[A lover must smear their own blood upon their face like a flower.

O discourteous lover, why did you stain the beloved’s garment?]

Here, Bedil articulates the inexorable anguish of love by likening the lover to a self-immolating figure, willingly sacrificing himself in devotion. The beloved, cast in the role of the slayer, is exalted as a figure of unattainable superiority. The metaphor of blood-stained garments serves as a poignant emblem of the lover’s submission and the inherent asymmetry of the relationship.

Donne and Bedil portray love as a two-edged force: elevating the spirit yet exposing it to ruin. Their intellectually profound and emotionally charged depictions reveal the universality of this theme, bridging cultures and eras.

John Donne’s The Good-Morrow, a hallmark of metaphysical poetry, celebrates Platonic love through the union of souls beyond physicality, achieving intellectual and spiritual harmony. Its dramatic monologue form blends emotional intensity with philosophical depth. A parallel vision of spiritual love finds articulation in the verse of Abdul Qadir Bedil, whose Sufi-inflected poetics offer an equally intricate meditation on the unity of existence.

Consider the following couplet by Bedil:

[How long will you resist the call? Recognise the sign,

For waves and bubbles inevitably return to the ocean.]

In this couplet, the ‘ocean’ serves as a metaphysical symbol of the infinite or the divine, while ‘waves’ and ‘bubbles’ signify discrete entities—the lover and the beloved—each endowed with an ephemeral existence. The imagery encapsulates Bedil’s ontological vision: the transient identities of individual souls ultimately dissolve into the absolute unity of the whole. This allegory of dissolution underscores the interdependence between the finite and the infinite, resonating with Donne’s thematic exploration of the spiritual and intellectual symbiosis achieved through love.

Bedil’s cyclical philosophy of existence is further elaborated in another of his verses:

[When the visible colour of this illusory existence fades,

Whence did it come, and where did it go?]

This inquiry into origins of existence and destinations parallels Donne’s meditative reflections in The Good-Morrow. Addressing his beloved, Donne marvels at the transformative power of their love, which renders all past experiences insignificant. The speaker asserts:

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Donne elevates love to a metaphysical realm, where the lovers’ union forms a microcosm surpassing external realities, akin to Bedil’s allegory of waves and bubbles, linking the particular with the universal. Donne’s metaphorical repertoire in The Good-Morrow further explores the novelty of love’s discovery. The speaker likens the lovers’ prior experiences to ‘countries’ and their past relationships to ‘maps’ and ‘princes,’ emphasising their insignificance in the light of their newfound connection. This imagery highlights love’s capacity to transcend worldly concerns and construct an unparalleled realm of spiritual and intellectual fulfilment.

A comparative study of Donne and Bedil underscores the universality of human values and spiritual truths, transcending cultural and linguistic divides.

Donne’s portrayal of love as a medium for mutual enlightenment achieves its apotheosis in the following lines:

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest.

This intimate reflection conveys the idea that love fosters a profound self-awareness and spiritual intimacy, enabling each lover to see their truest self mirrored in the other. A similar metaphysical sentiment pervades Bedil’s couplet:

[I am engaged in guarding the secluded sanctuary of the eye.

O gaze, step outside, for this is the beloved’s resting place.]

In this couplet, Bedil envisions the lover as the custodian of the beloved’s eye, a sacred locus imbued with both allure and destruction. The act of guarding the eye signifies a devotion that transcends corporeal desire, underscoring the spiritual reverence inherent in Bedil’s conception of love.

In A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Donne offers another emblematic metaphor of spiritual love:

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;

Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show

To move, but doth, if the other do.

The geometric compass becomes a powerful symbol of unity amidst separation, illustrating the indivisible connection between two souls despite physical distance. This image, akin to Bedil’s allegory of waves and bubbles, underscores the metaphysical continuity between the individual and the universal, positioning love as the axis of spiritual transcendence in both poets’ works.

Bedil, too, eloquently articulates the concept of spiritual unity in the following couplet:

[Here, there is no distinction between gain and loss, perfection and imperfection.

The arc of the compass contains within it every beginning and end.]

In these lines, Bedil encapsulates with remarkable brevity the metaphysical notion of unity and interconnectedness. Employing the compass as a central metaphor, he gestures toward the cyclical nature of existence, where every origin contains within itself the seed of its culmination. Unlike John Donne, who dedicates an entire stanza to expound the metaphysical significance of the compass in A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, Bedil compresses this profound idea into two lines, achieving an intellectual elegance that rivals Donne’s metaphysical ingenuity.

Both poets, however, converge in their use of paradoxical imagery and unconventional metaphors to probe the depths of spiritual experience. While Donne’s compass metaphor emphasises the unbroken connection between two souls, even amidst physical separation, Bedil’s compass signifies the dissolution of binaries such as perfection and imperfection, suggesting an ultimate unity that transcends oppositional constructs. Bedil’s affinity for paradoxes emerges as a hallmark of his poetic philosophy, particularly in his exploration of the interplay between divine love and human physicality.

Consider the following couplet:

[Bedil, if love for idols is heresy,

Then none but heretics possess true faith.]

Here, ishq-i-butaan (love for idols) operates as a symbolic representation of material or transient love, conventionally condemned as heretical within traditional spiritual paradigms. Yet, in a stunning reversal, Bedil reconfigures this notion, suggesting that such heresy paradoxically engenders the deepest faith due to the intensity of devotion it embodies. This deliberate subversion exemplifies Bedil’s penchant for traversing the liminal spaces between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, materiality and spirituality.

In this context, Bedil’s paradoxical assertions evoke the limits of conventional perception and rationality, compelling the reader to confront the ineffable dimensions of spiritual truth. For Bedil, the realm of metaphysical inquiry is one where linear logic falters, and ordinary understanding proves insufficient to grasp the profound mysteries of existence. The interplay of divine and human love in Bedil’s poetry resonates with Donne’s metaphysical explorations, particularly in their shared emphasis on transcending the physical to access the spiritual. While Donne’s work often fuses physical and divine love to highlight their interdependence, Bedil’s verse tends to dissolve the boundaries between the two entirely, merging the finite with the infinite.

A comparative study of Donne and Bedil underscores the universality of human values and spiritual truths, transcending cultural and linguistic divides. Their poetry blends metaphysical inquiry with spiritual depth, offering visions of existence that extend beyond their specific contexts and reflect humanity’s shared transcendental aspirations.

The writer is a poet and a critic. He is an assistant professor of Urdu at Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj University in Kanpur, India, and the author of three books.