THE SACRIFICE OF SARMAD When the Ego Was Beheaded, Only God Remained

 THE SACRIFICE OF SARMAD

When the Ego Was Beheaded,

Only God Remained

Sarmad’s martyrdom as a symbol of self-annihilation and Divine realization

“Spiritual truth must be experienced—not merely repeated.”

The mystic Sarmad Kashani was executed in Delhi in 1661 during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb. He was accused of refusing to recite the complete kalma: La ilaha illallah—“There is no deity except God.”

Sarmad would utter only La ilaha—“There is no deity.” Mystically, this represents the stage of negation: the rejection of every outward object of worship and every inner idol created by the ego and the mind. He refused to add illallah—“except God”—because he believed that he had not yet directly realized this ultimate metaphysical truth. To pronounce it merely as inherited belief or outward conformity would, for him, have been dishonest.

When ordered in open court to recite the complete kalma, Sarmad remained faithful to his inner experience and defied imperial authority. He would not exchange truth for safety. Consequently, he was condemned and beheaded near Delhi’s Jama Masjid.

According to the spiritual legend, after the sword severed his head, Sarmad’s headless body arose, lifted the fallen head and then proclaimed the complete kalma: La ilaha illallah. Whether understood literally or symbolically, the story conveys a profound mystical truth. Only after the limited self—the ego or nafs—had been extinguished could the affirmation of Divine Reality arise spontaneously.

Sarmad’s martyrdom thus reveals the highest mystery of fana—the complete annihilation of the ego or nafs. La ilaha is the sword that destroys every illusion: the world, the ego and the sense of separate existence. Only when the false “I” has been beheaded can illallah arise as a living realization—not as a belief uttered by the tongue, but as Truth experienced by the soul. Sarmad gave his head to prove that the Divine cannot be realized while the ego remains alive. When Sarmad ceased to exist, only God remained; therefore, the complete kalma proclaimed itself through him.

Historical note: Sarmad’s execution in 1661 is historical; the account of his body lifting the severed head belongs to the devotional tradition surrounding his martyrdom and is presented here for its mystical symbolism.