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

THE INDIAN TOMB
Romuald in order to take possession of his remains, and after St
Thomas Aquinas’ death monks prepared his body (for experimental
purposes) fearing to lose the invaluable relic (Huizinga 1995: 168).
Subsequent formalization of the cult of saints resulted in a transition
from relics to amulets, which were considered to be a means to
ward off evil, or a medicine for effecting a cure, as well as being a
depository of the miraculous occult power of the saint. From the
fourteenth century onwards preparation of amulets (ta‘wīdh), each
a kind of individual memorial, became the main occupation of the
dervishes and attendants of tombs. The amulet contained a small
piece of stone from the saint’s tomb, a chip from the canopy over the
mazār or a shred from the chaddar used as its cover and finally simply
a piece of paper with a prayer or a verse from the Qur’ān written on
it. As with everything else in the world of saints, amulets also had
their specialization: some were meant to ward off the effect of evil eye
and black magic, some to cure diseases of the body and others would
ensure success in life and so on. Selling of ta‘wīdh was an important
source of income for the attendants of dargāhs.
In religions far removed from the iconoclasm of Islam and founded
to a large extent on the veneration of images it is difficult to discover
a qualitative difference between the degree of sacredness of one or
other sacred image. All the images in a church, in a Hindu or Buddhist
temple are real in equal degree and evoke the reverential trepidation
of the believer. An icon, a fresco or a statue by themselves do not
teach that God (or gods) should be worshipped and the saints should
only be venerated; in order to appreciate the difference one has to
have recourse to the authority of the scripture or the canon, the clergy
or the priests. In the system of concepts of Islam, which rejects all
sorts of images of sacred objects as idolatry, saints have been assigned
a place at the periphery of religious life.
Saint (in Arabic wālī, pl. awliyā) is understood in h˛adīths (Prophet’s
traditions) as one close to, a friend of or even loved by God. According
to early Arab Sufis (Junaid in particular) saints are people who have
attained perfection in religious practice as well as in the knowledge of
God; they are privy to the concealed, and contemplation of the Truth
(mushāhadat al-h˛aqq) is accessible to them (Islam 1991: 45). Many
Muslim theologians, including one of the first theoreticians of Sufism
in India, al-Hujwiri (buried in Lahore in the eleventh century, and
later acknowledged as a saint under the name of Data Ganjbakhsh),
have discussed the question of correlation between sainthood
(wilāyat) and prophethood (nubuwwat) and have categorically
rejected the idea of superiority of saints over prophets.
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