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

THE SPIRITUAL SOVEREIGN OF MULTAN
in Multan was barred to non-Muslims and philanthropy of the
order did not extend to them. At the same time there is convincing
hagiographic evidence about the missionary activity of Jalaluddin
Tabrizi, that he converted Bengalis into Islam by force; in particular,
with the assistance of the soldiers of Iltutmish he pulled down a
Hindu temple in Devatalla (later named Tabrizabad in honour of the
saint) and erected a khānqāh at its place.
Much has been already said about the attitude of Chishtis towards
poverty – faqr was one of the fundamental principles of their
teaching. Suhrawardis were guided by the dictums of their eponym,
who considered that neither faqr nor zuhd were an indispensable
condition of the life of a dervish, although they brought him closer
to fanā. What is more, Abu Hafs ‘Umar taught that rigid hostility to
wealth is an indication of spiritual debility, fear of dependence
on money and material wealth, whereas a true Sufi is not afraid of
anything and does not differentiate between wealth and poverty.
Baha’uddin Zakariya cited the same arguments in his debate with
Hamiduddin Suwali Nagori.
Nevertheless, ‘indifference’ to wealth made Baha’uddin Zakariya
one of the most well-to-do people of his time: he bequeathed to the
eldest of his sons, Sadruddin, property alone worth 700 tankā, a huge
amount for those times. Wealth, it is true, did not bring any benefit
to the saint’s descendants. After his death another of his sons was
kidnapped by robbers and was rescued on payment of a huge
ransom. 9 This exceptional case of medieval kidnapping indirectly
proved the superiority of the Chishti concept of handling money,
according to which one should get rid of it immediately and should
never amass it. It is doubtful whether it would have occurred even to
a most inveterate scoundrel to kidnap one of the numerous children
of indigent Shaikh Farid.
However, Baha’uddin Zakariya’s fortune (and, for that matter,
even his generosity) is most strikingly characterized by the episode in
Fawā’id al-fu’ād in which the governor of Multan appealed to him
for assistance in the form of food supply, since no stocks of grain
were left in the city. The Shaikh gave instructions to issue grains from
his granaries, and in the middle of the grain a carafe full of silver
coins was found. The honest-minded governor declared: ‘The Shaykh
has provided us with grain, not this silver. It must be returned to
him’. ‘Tell them,’ said the saint to whom the find was brought, ‘that
Zakariya knew about this. I intentionally gave you this silver along
with the grain. If you give something to somebody, you should give
it with a flourish’ (Amir Hasan 1992: 330–1).
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