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

THE INDIAN TOMB
cenotaph of Sayyid Yusuf Gardezi’s tomb (Multan) a small hole has
been made, covered with a wooden lid. Through this hole the saint,
who died in the twelfth century, talks to the most pious pilgrims
or even extends his hand for greeting! Near the doors of the tomb
there are also two graves: one of a lion, on whose back the saint
supposedly rode into Multan from Afghanistan in the year 1080, and
the other of a snake, whom he used to hold in his hand instead of a
staff. A visit to the graves of the animals is a part of the rite of ziyārat
of the saint’s tomb.
The cult of saints was from the very beginning under suspicion
by the representatives of ‘official’ Islam, seeing in it shirk, or assigning
of ‘partners’ to Allah, i.e. polytheism. In the strict monotheism of
Islam, worship of objects and people, even though saints, was looked
upon as a terrible sin and infidelity (kufr). Particularly intolerant
to the cult of saints was the attitude of the Hanbali madhab, and in
modern times that of the Wahhabis, advocates of the purification
of Islam from external influences and of return to its sources. They
accused the followers of the cult of saints of shirk al-‘ilm, of ascribing
a certain ‘secret knowledge’ to the saints, and also of shirk al-‘ibāda,
i.e. of worshipping something besides Allah, in particular of worshipping
graves and tombs. Indian authorities of Hanafi madhab were
not so strict and declared the cult of saints to be an ‘unauthorized
innovation’ (bid‘a) and an error, which was, however, not as terrible
as the accusation of shirk.
Besides shirk the cult of saints also encroached upon the dogma of
Islam about qad˛ā, i.e. divine predestination. It turned out that in
misfortune, in illness or indigence one might not rely upon the
will of Allah, but endeavour to remedy the situation by means of a
saint’s intercession or intervention. Praying to the saint, making him
offerings and carrying out ritual activities in his tomb, a faithful
endeavoured to change the circumstances of his fate (qadar), which
as he should have thought, was predetermined from the heavens.
Considering that many ‘ulamā and faqīhs were connected with
Sufi orders and often happened to be their members, there always
existed a particular antagonism between them and the Sufis. In
Goldziher’s words it was rooted
partly in the insufficient orthodoxy of the dogmatics and
exegetics, which were developing in Sufi schools, and partly
in the unrestrained by ritual law and far from holy mode
of life of the wandering dervishes, to a great extent abusing
their position of Sufis. After all at all times there were mystic
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