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

THE WARRIOR SAINTS
(mostly fabricated ones), which are scattered over a vast territory
extending from Uttar Pradesh to Bengal.
Thus in various districts the following mazārs of Salar Mas‘ud’s
military officers were venerated: in Gopalau – the mazār of Makhdum
‘Azizuddin (also known as Lal Pir), in Qannauj – the grave of the
army kotwāl Miyan Rajab, and in Tambaur – the mausoleum of
Burhanuddin. Finally, in Satrikh even the saint’s father Salar Shahu’s
mazār, called Birdha Baba by Hindus, became a place of pilgrimage.
According to popular belief, after their martyr’s death the men in
Ghazi Miyan’s army became not only saints, but also ghosts. Miyan
Rajab, for example, could appear before the eyes of the people in the
form of a headless horseman. At night in the suburbs of Faizabad
wayfarers used to come across a whole army of the saint’s soldiers
turned into ghosts (Crooke 1968: 232).
Obviously, several factors were conducive to the transformation of
Salar Mas‘ud’s tomb into an ‘inter-religious sanctuary’. First, the
saint’s mazār has been erected where there used to be a sun temple,
and it was on the banks of a sacred reservoir, in short at a place
consecrated by tradition. Here historical topography itself became the
source of syncretism. Second, there took place a mutual identification
of the saint’s image with local deities, most likely with Rama and
Krishna. In this case it so happened that emphasis was laid upon
secondary elements of the saint’s life (his young age, the legend
about his marriage), and the basic historical facts (military feats,
proselytizing activity) were relegated to the background. In other
words the veneration of Ghazi Miyan is the fruit of synthesis and the
mutual identification of two traditions, in the process of which
Muslim ziyārat played the role of substratum, whereas the Hindu
practice of pilgrimage was vested with the function of amplifying a
resonator.
The cult of the Ghāzī, and consequently of warrior saints, was
particularly developed in medieval Bengal, the Islamization of which
took place in several stages. Jalaluddin Tabrizi, who had started
proselytizing amongst the Bengalis, was not averse to methods
involving force. His mission was continued by Shah Jalal (died in
1347), the saint who is credited with the conversion of the inhabitants
of East Bengal, and whose tomb in Sylhet (Bangladesh) even
up to the present day is a place of pilgrimage. Muhammad Ghawthi
Shattari has described Shah Jalal’s life in the hagiographic collection
Gulzār-i Abrār.
Shah Jalal was born in Turkestan where he was initiated into silsilai
Khwājagān. He considered himself a khalīfa of Sayyid Ahmad
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