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

THE WARRIOR SAINTS
endeavours to include Salar Mas‘ud in the Chishtiyya silsila, asserting
that the saint was Mu‘inuddin Sijzi’s disciple. In witness of his
statement he refers to the ‘evidence’ of contemporaries, who had
supposedly observed how the founder of the Chishtiyya fraternity
used to turn over the supplications addressed to him to the care of
Salar Mas‘ud. This obvious anachronism has been completely
rejected by many medieval historians and hagiographers.
Mir’āt-i Mas‘ūdī narrates that in the year 1011 Sultan Mahmud
Ghaznavi received envoys from the Muslims of Ajmer, seeking his
support against the Hindu Rajas who were infringing upon their
rights. As it was, the inhabitants of Ajmer were running the great
risk of their request being denied them: they had not been mentioning
Mahmud Ghaznavi’s name in the khuţba, i.e. the sermon accompanying
the Friday prayer, in the course of which the khaţī b prays for
the living Caliph and the ruler. And it must be said that the mention
of his name in the khuţba was one of main external criteria for
independence from a ruler in the Islamic world. In exchange for the
inclusion of his name in the khuţba Mahmud sent his troops to Ajmer
under the command of Salar Shahu, who defeated the Rajas and
subjugated the regions adjacent to the city. As a reward Mahmud
gave his sister in marriage to the military leader, and on 14 February
1015, during a military campaign, the future saint, Salar Mas‘ud,
was born from this marriage.
As Mir’āt-i Mas‘ūdī narrates, even in his childhood Mas‘ud
demonstrated his outstanding capabilities as a military leader. As a
favourite of his warlike uncle, he accompanied him in all military
campaigns, particularly during the celebrated expedition to Somnath
in Kathiawar. It was Mas‘ud who supposedly persuaded his uncle to
demolish the famous idol of Somnath – a deed repeatedly glorified
as a great feat in Persian poetry. Some of the courtiers, in particular
Vizier Khwaja Hasan Maimandi, were against the demolition of the
Somnath temple, but by his religious zeal young Mas‘ud put the adult
retinue of the Sultan to shame, who took action in accordance with
his nephew’s advice. With the demolition of Somnath begins the
legendary career of Mas‘ud as an invincible warrior.
At the age of 17 at the head of an Afghan army he arrived in Multan
and, having subjugated it, made for Delhi, where he stayed for almost
half a year. Then through Meerut he advanced towards the southeast,
into Awadh: at first to Qannauj and then to Satrikh (now the district
of Barabanki), where the troops of his father Salar Shahu joined him.
In Satrikh, which had become the General Headquarters of the Afghan
army, Salar Shahu died on 4 October 1032, and Mas‘ud continued
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