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

THE OLD MAN OF AJMER
he unreservedly liked samā‘ and considered ‘audition’ to be one of the
main instruments of spiritual transformation of a mystic. The defence
of samā’, beginning with Mu‘inuddin, which permeates the entire
literature of the Chishtis, on the one hand became a watershed
between them and the competing Suhrawardiyya fraternity, and
on the other, put them against the ‘ulamā. On the saint’s order
Hamiduddin Suwali Nagori compiled a ‘Treatise on audition’ (Risālai
samā‘), where he formulated the theory, later developed by other
authors, according to which three stages of ecstasy are reached
successively, owing to samā‘: tawājud, the ecstasy deliberately evoked
by means of psychotechnics: wajd, the state of ecstasy proper; and
wujūd, the state beyond the limits of ecstasy, that is existence in God
(Lawrence 1983: 76–7). Excessive enthusiasm of the Chishtis for
samā‘ gradually mitigated the ‘sobriety’ of their original practice,
pushing the fraternity towards ecstatic Sufism.
The history of the veneration of the tomb in Ajmer, which has
become, without exaggeration, the main Sufi shrine of India, more
than matches the history of the saint’s life in its richness of events. As
happens to be the custom among Sufis, the Khwaja was buried near
his khānqāh, and the original mazār of bricks was in due course
covered with a marble cenotaph. The tomb, erected on the orders of
the Sultan of Malwa Mahmud Khalji (1436–69) was later rebuilt
and expanded more than once. The main entrance doors of the
dargāh Buland Darwaza were built during the reign of the same
sultan.
No information is available regarding pilgrimage to Ajmer in the
thirteenth century, but after a hundred years the role of the Chishtiyya
fraternity in Indian society had increased to such an extent that
performing ziyārat to the mazār of the founder of the fraternity
became obligatory for representatives of the ruling dynasties and the
aristocracy. Thus, poet ‘Isami, author of the historical mathnawī ‘The
Sultans’ conquests’ (Futūh˝as-salāţī n, 1350) refers to Muhammad bin
Tughluq’s pilgrimage to Ajmer:
Mu‘īn al-din, that Sijzī who was a refuge of the faith
That Guide of the Road who is asleep at Ajmer,
When the Sultan had performed ziyārat to him
He took the road thence to his capital (Dehlī)
(Digby 1983: 97)
A further reference to regular pilgrimage to Ajmer in the second half
of the fourteenth century occurs in the malfūz.āt of Sayyid Muhammad
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