The Mughals, the Sufi Shaikhs and the Formation of the Akbari ...

FORMATION OF THE AKBARI DISPENSATION 141
opponents, including the dreamer Dattu, must have been observing
with interest. 9 However, the fact that they were incorporated into
Gangohi’s tazkira and continued to be an integral part of it, shows
the image of the Shaikh that Gangohi’s descendants and disciples
preferred to keep, even when, as we will see later, they vied with their
rivals, the Naqshbandis, to have some influence in Mughal official
circles.
Gangohi, however, also seems to have periodically tried to develop
good relations with Mughal conquerors. We possess letters written
by him to Babur, Humayun and also to a Mughal noble, Tardi
Beg. Besides the routine contents that such letters transmit, namely
exhortations for pious acts and generous care for the learned and the
saintly, in his letter to Babur, Gangohi particularly projects himself
as an orthodox Sunni advocate of a rather narrow and bigoted juristic
version of the shari’a. 10 To some extent he contradicts here, an earlier
position elaborated in his Rushd Nama. 11 Not much however can really
be made of his apparently changed position, especially if we take into
context the fluid and ambiguous political conditions in which these
letters were written. Features of indigenous devotional religion in fact
continued to be part of his tasawwuf. He also never gave up teaching
the Rushd Nama to his disciples. 12
As someone recovering from the trauma and humiliation of Mughal
captivity, Gangohi’s uncompromisingly bigoted position in his letter
to Babur could also have been intended to reinstate himself as a
pious pir, with an unstated assertion that his close affinity with the
erstwhile rulers had been for a purely religious objective, unconcerned
with anything profane and this-worldly. Whether he succeeded in his
effort or not is a moot point. There is not much evidence in the
existing contemporary sources—either from courtly circles or Sufi
fraternities—to show his, and for that matter of any other Chishti
shaikh’s, regular and sustained connections with the early Mughals.
The position of pir to Babur and Humayun was still a preserve of
9 Compare Digby, ‘Dreams and Reminiscences’, p. 80n.
10 Maktubat-i Quddusiya, pp. 224–25 and 335–39.
11 Simon Digby, ‘Abd al-Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537 A.D.): The personality and
attitudes of a Medieval Indian Sufi’ in Medieval India—A Miscellany,Vol.3, pp. 1–66,in
particular pp. 34–66; S.A.A. Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India, Vol. I (Delhi: Munshiram
Manoharlal, 2003 reprint), pp. 339–49.
12 Digby, ‘Abd al-Quddus Gangohi’; see also Iqtidar Alam Khan, ‘Shaikh Abdul
Quddus Gangohi’s relations with political authorities: A reapparaisal’ in Medieval
India: A Miscellany, Vol.4, pp.73–90.
http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 15 Feb 2011 IP address: 129.174.97.34