An elder or religious authority; in ghazal often the sanctimonious figure set against the rind.
Literally: the elder; religious dignitary
In the wine-and-tavern register the shaikh is the establishment cleric — the respectable man of the mosque, often paired with the brahman of the temple — whose by-the-book religion the poet contrasts with the rind's living love. The recurring sheikh-o-brahman tableau makes him the face of every sectarian formalism. Iqbal needles the shaikh whose creed is correct but cold, arguing that the law without love is a lamp without flame.
Waaiz
A preacher, a sermonizer; often the hypocritical moralizer whom the poet mocks.
Zaahid
An ascetic, an austere pietist; in ghazal the killjoy foil to the wine-loving rind.
Barhaman
A Brahmin or Hindu priest; in Persianate poetry the idol-temple's keeper, a counterpart to the Muslim cleric.
Sheikh-o-brahman
The Muslim divine and the Hindu priest; the two orthodoxies the free spirit transcends.