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

THE WARRIOR SAINTS
his death on the other hand. An example can be found in the cult
of such persons as Mu‘inuddin Sijzi, Baba Farid and Nizamuddin
Awliya who all lived to a venerable age.
Relics of military honours can, in fact, be discerned only in Ghazi
Miyan’s cult, but even here nothing reminds one now of martyrdom
particularly – the rites of mourning and lamentation, in which the
Shi‘a ritual is so rich, are altogether absent. Functions of curative
magic (the cure of leprosy) and fertility (the conjugal aspect) come
to the foreground. The cult of Shah Jalal and Pir Badr, on the whole,
is divested of any connection with military and proselytizing activity;
images of these Muslim ghāzīshave been identified with the legendary
saint Khizr and the rituals of their veneration have accordingly made
allowance for the popular worship of spirits and deities of sources of
water. Shah Madar’s life only indirectly bears a relation to propagation
of faith by force of arms, but the Madariyya sect founded by him
has astonishingly combined the militant expansionistic aspect of
futuwwa with esoteric occultism.
In other words, the veneration of warrior saints once again
confirms that there is no direct dependence between the personality
of a saint, as depicted in historical and hagiographic literature, and
the nature of his cult. As always, the practice of veneration of a saint’s
tomb was influenced mainly by the universal notions about baraka,
utilitarian objects of ziyārat (curative magic, strengthening of fertility,
etc.) and etiological legends of a given locality.
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