Saint Kabir: Who Spoke the Word of God and Beguiled Women

Great men don't always come with disclaimers. Nonetheless, the world worships them because one must always look at the brighter side. Saint Kabir never cared what others thought of him. His identity was mixed, being a Muslim who speaks the words of a Hindu god. People loved him and hated him at the same time. Modern critical analysis of his works, however, throws light on a glaring truth- that he hated women.

Saint Kabir | Source: Pinterest

Humans are an amalgamation of various contradictions. A person comes up with an ideology; thousands would suddenly crop up, claiming bifurcation and contradicting. No human is fully wrong, nor are they fully right. Humans are illusionary, breaking their own clipped boundaries, assumptions, and mystifying life. Buddha was not born. He was awakened. So does Kabir, who is the subject of this story. He is not the subject per se; it's his beliefs, his ideologies that made people love and hate him at the same time.

Saint Kabir was no ordinary man, but he was a bit too unusual. He is a prominent figure of the 15th-century Bhakti movement and always had the name of Lord of Rama on his lips. He wrote many spiritual and philosophical verses as the by-product of his spirituality. But he was not born into this culture and life always. He was born into a Muslim carpet weaver family and, for most of his youth, spent his days weaving patterns on carpets. Until he was awakened spiritually by lord Rama.

In most of his spiritual teachings and poetry, Kabir talks about how Rama is the world, and the world resides in the eyes of Rama. Those who don't have the name of Rama on their lips are the most ignorant of beings, bereft of a communal and sacred longing. All his life, Kabir was loved and abhorred equally by the members of his community. But Kabir never bifurcated or converted to another identity; he always identified as a Muslim preaching the word of Rama. He was not ashamed to worship the god of another religion. This practice of his alone spread the word of communal harmony and individual liberty.

After reading so much about Saint Kabir, one must have made a high opinion of him, but one astonishing fact looms like a dark shadow over all the good that Kabir has ever done in favour of humanity. It is his neglect and obliviousness to women. Yes, the great, intellectual saint Kabir was a sexist and probably a misogynist as well.

He barely mentions women in his works and poetry. It's like the other gender doesn't exist for him. At this point, one must be reminded of the fact that this same Kabir was once married with two children, before the spiritual blizzard hit him. But even a sworne celibate doesn't degrade or deny the existence of women, who form an almost equal part of the population. When Kabir is found mentioning women in the slightest, it's always as an afterthought, or if the modern feminist world cares to analyse it, it's offensive and rather subjugating.

Kabir never mentions women in his poetry. He talks about them as if they are enemies. A woman is a serpent who can bite off the sanity of a person. They are a vessel of temptation that doesn't care about spirituality but just the purpose of reproducing and seducing men, keeping them away from serving a greater purpose. They are vile creatures; their concern is not beneficial to this world: Kabir's thoughts and world, the world's modern analysis.

It's sad and astonishing to unravel the various layers of human personality. Kabir had an enigmatic spirit and always promoted communal harmony, but his negligence to the other gender made him a typical conventional, patriarchal man with stereotypes deep-rooted in his bones. Nonetheless, whenever the name of Saint Kabir is taken, there is only admiration and praise. There are always various unanalysed sides of a person which can change the opinion of the world about them in an instant. One can delve deep into his poetry and read his mindset. He sings praises of Ram, but there is never even a single mention of Sita.