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

NOTES
His feet were firmly planted on the path of Mohammed,
He was a flute for the impassioned music of love.
His tomb keeps our city safe from harm
And causes the beams of true religion to shine on us.
Heaven stooped his brow to his threshold.
(Iqbal 1977: 118)
18 Apart from inscriptions of eulogy, addressed to Data Sahib himself,
these are typical formulas of Sunni piety:
Abū Bakr ham chū Ka‘ba ‘Umar dar ţawāf-i ū
‘Uthmān āb-i Zamzam ‘Alī h˝ajj-i akbar ast
Abu Bakr is like Ka’ba, ‘Umar is circumambulating it,
‘Uthman is the water of the Zamzam, ‘Ali is the Great H˛ajj.
3 THE OLD MAN OF AJMER
1 Amir Khurd in Siyar al-awliyā lists the names of Mu‘inuddin Sijzi’s
predecessors in the silsila: Abu Ishaq ash-Shami, Khwaja Abu Ahmad
Abdal Chishti, Abu Muhammad Chishti, Khwaja Yusuf Chishti,
Khwaja Maudud Chishti, Khwaja Ahmad Chishti, Khwaja Haji Sharif,
Khwaja ‘Uthman Harwani. With the last named, who was
Mu‘inuddin’s spiritual preceptor, the progress of the silsila on the
territory of Khurasan comes to an end (Amir Khurd 1978: 94).
2 Mu‘izzuddin Ghori is more often referred to in Muslim historical
literature as Muhammad Ghori; in Indian literary tradition, particularly
in the famous poem Pr¸ithvīrāj Raso by Chand Bardai, he bears the
name Shihabuddin.
3 Amir Khurd’s assertion that Mu‘inuddin spent about twenty years with
his preceptor Khwaja ‘Uthman Harwani, does not conform to the
hagiographic story of his meeting with ‘Abdul Qadir Jilani in Baghdad.
The latter passed away in 1166 and that is why Mu‘inuddin could visit
him at quite a young age. The same applies to his meeting with
Najibuddin Suhrawardi (who died in 1168).
4 Such is, for example, the hagiographic story of conversion of the Shi‘a
vicegerent of Sabzwar town Muhammad Yadgar to Sunni Islam. He
conducted himself with such animosity towards Sunnis who victimized
people only for the fact that they bore the names Abu Bakr, ‘Umar or
‘Uthman (i.e. the names of the first three Caliphs, not recognised by
Shi‘a). The effect of only one glance of Khwaja Mu‘inuddin was to
make him repent of his delusions and became a pious Sunni (Rizvi 1986:
120–1). Amir Khurd narrates another symmetric story of the conversion
of orthodox theologian Maulana Ziyauddin Hakim to the path of
Sufism. The Khwaja visited the Maulana’s madrasa in Balkh, where he
was implanting anti-Sufi sentiments. The Khwaja invited the Maulana
to share a meal with him, during which all of a sudden the profundity
of mystic teaching dawned on him. Later Maulana Ziyauddin became
the Khwaja’s disciple and his khalīfa in Balkh (Amir Khurd 1978: 209).
5 Abu’l Fazl, in particular, writes: ‘In the same year that Mu‘izu’d-Din
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