Muslim Saints of South Asia: The eleventh to ... - blog blog blog

THE PEACEMAKER OF DELHI
example, duty to one’s family) as enjoined by religion. 4 Possession of
private property, high social status and success in life, in the opinion
of the saint, only consolidate a man’s links with the material world,
whereas he should live without too much baggage, i.e. he should
manage with the minimum, and should make a donation of the
surplus to the needy. With respect to earthly blessings and, in the first
place, to wealth and worldly fame, the Shaikh divided mankind into
three categories: first, those who thirst for these blessings and spend
all their days in their pursuit; second, those who reject all mundane
comforts and consider the world itself to be hostile; and, finally,
the most worthy of the lot, those who display neither hostility nor
attachment to this world.
In other words, Nizamuddin stood on the Path which would be
regarded as ‘middle’ in all respects. He himself, of course, belonged
to the last category, never running after fortune but also not condemning
this aspiration among others. Thus, to the puzzling question
of a former schoolmate, who had become a successful qād˝ī , as to
how he, i.e. Nizamuddin, who was studying so hard to become a
faqīh, did not feel ashamed to wear patched up cast-off clothes, the
saint replied with calm dignity:
Na hamrahī tu marā rāh-i khēsh gīr birau
Torā sa‘ādat bādā marā nigūnsārī
Our ways are different, be off and follow your path.
Let success fall to your lot, and failure – to mine.
(Amir Khurd 1978: 239)
The Shaikh developed the Chishti concept of non-violence into a
doctrine of socio-religious tolerance and pacifism. He refused to
extend moral support to the policy of the expansion of the Delhi
Sultans, which turned out to be the actual cause of his conflict with
the authorities. When the Shaikh’s associates Amir Khusrow, Amir
Hasan Sijzi and Zia’uddin Barani, who were in court service,
compiled chronicles and wrote odes eulogizing the military victories
of the Sultans, he avoided their direct criticism, but in his usual
manner of allegorical admonition used to reiterate: ‘If someone puts
a thorn [in your path] and you put a thorn [in his], there are thorns
everywhere’ (Amir Hasan 1992: 180).
The exhortation, so familiar to us from Christian teaching, to love
our enemy permeates the entire malfūz.āt of the saint. He used to say:
‘It is like this among men, that you are straight with those who are
straight with you and crooked to those who are crooked. But among
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