A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

158 A history of Inner Asia
1580 Khan Abdallah II transferred the office of shaykhulislam of
Samarkand to them.This office, somewhat comparable to that of our
Supreme Court, was then occupied by the Ahraris on a hereditary basis
at least until the end of the seventeenth century.
The Ahraris, however, did not retain a monopoly on dynastic prominence
and wealth among the Naqshbandis.First of all, the shrine that
developed around the tomb of Baha al-Din Naqshband near Bukhara
possessed an implicit primacy over the Ahrari shrine near Samarkand,
a fact illustrated by the choice of the more important Shaybanid khans
to be buried at Qasr-i Arifan near the “Great Khwaja’s” sepulcher.
Secondly, at least two other dynasties of Naqshbandi shaykhs arose in
the course of the sixteenth century and came to play significant roles.
The founder of one of these dynasties was Ahmad Khwajagi Kasani,
also known as “Makhdum-i Azam” (“The Great Master”; 1461–1542).
As his nisba suggests, he hailed from Kasan, a town in northern Fergana
near present-day Chust.He left it for Tashkent, presumably in order to
become a murid of Muhammad Qazi Burhan al-Din (d.1515), one of
Khwaja Ubaydallah Ahrar’s khalifas.Becoming a pir and murshid himself,
he gradually gained fame as a saintly person and author of many
learned treatises.His renown reached Ubaydallah Khan, who showered
favors and gifts on him, enabling him to build a khangah in Bukhara
near his residence.The khwaja subsequently became a murshid of both
Tajiks and Uzbeks – of such people as Muhammad Sultan Juybari
(1481–1563) and Jani Beg Sultan for example.The former is important
as the founder of the dynasty of Juybari shaykhs, Naqshbandi custodians
of the shrine of Imam Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Sad in the village of
Sumitan just west of Bukhara; the latter as an Abulkhayrid Shaybanid
whose branch, the Janibegids, gained primacy in the mid-sixteenth
century and held it until the end of the Shaybanid period.As for Imam
Abu Bakr, he was a tenth-century theologian described in a sixteenthcentury
document as the person whose tomb was provided for by a waqf
endowed by himself; the document also states that the waqf was established
for the benefit of the imam’s male descendants, and implies that
Khwaja Sad Juybari is at the moment in that position.Khwaja Sad (d.
1589) was Muhammad Sultan Juybari’s son and successor, and with him
began the prodigious growth of the Juybari shrine at Sumitan on the
western outskirts of Bukhara.He enjoyed the gratitude and favors from
the khan Abdallah II, a grandson of Jani Beg Sultan, who did not forget
that his dynastic branch owed much to the Juybari shaykhs for its victory.
The shrine, which came to be known as Char Bakr, grew into a complex