Documents of the Right Word

making is their fanatical advocacy of Mu’âwiya.” This faqîr (I)
said, “We, too, hate Yezîd and those who tormented and cursed
the Ahl-i-Bayt and we say that they were wicked people. As for
hadrat Mu’âwiya; we acknowledge that he erred in his ijtihâd and
that hadrat Alî’s ijtihâd was correct. Hadrat Mu’âwiya’s
disagreeing with hadrat Alî and fighting him was based on ijtihâd
‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ anhumâ’. Yet he never criticised or
vituperated hadrat Imâm (Alî). Even as he fought against him he
respected him, acknowledged his superiority, praised and lauded
that noble Imâm. The person whom you suppose to be hadrat
Mu’âwiya’s enemy is actually very munificent. And his Rabb
(Allah) is very compassionate, too. We therefore do not comment
on the wars that took place among them. Quoting the âyat-ikerîma
at the end of Fat-h sûra, we say that they were very
merciful towards one another.”
[The book Berekât, which is also named Maqâmât-i-
Serhendiyya or Zubda-t-ul-maqâmât, was written in the Persian
language by Muhammad Hâshim-i-Kishmî in India in 1037 [A.D.
1627]. A copy of the book exists at number 1317 in the (Murâd
Molla) library, located in the district called Yavuz Sultân Selîm in
Istanbul. It was reproduced by offset process in Istanbul in 1977].
Kerâmats (miracles that occur through the Awliyâ or other
pious Muslims) of Imâm-i-Rabbânî Ahmad Fârûqî are written in
the eighth chapter of the second section of the book Berekât.
Muhammad Hâshim narrates the seventh of these kerâmats as
follows: I had a young Sayyid class-mate in madrasa. One day he
came panting. He gasped out a wonderful event he had
experienced. He had witnessed a great wonder through hadrat
Imâm-i-Rabbânî. He said:
I used to dislike those people who had fought against hadrat
Alî; of them, hadrat Muâwiya was the one I hated most. One night
I was reading the book Mektûbât (Letters) written by your
master, [i.e. Imâm-i-Rabbânî]. It read, “Imâm-i-Enes bin Mâlik
said that hating or censuring hadrat Muâwiya is like hating or
censuring hadrat Abû Bekr and hadrat ’Umar. If a person curses
him, he must be punished as if he cursed these two great Sahâbîs.”
When I read this I felt rather annoyed and said to myself, “How
come he wrote this nonsense here!” I dropped Mektûbât on the
floor, lay in my bed, and soon fell asleep. I had a dream: That
exalted shaikh of yours came towards me, indignant. With his
both blessed hands he pulled me by the ears and said, “You
ignorant child! You don’t like what we have written and dump our
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