Mu'in al-Din Chishti

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Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī
Maturidi
TariqaChishti (Founder)
Other namesKhwaja Ghareeb Nawaz, Sultan Ul Hind, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty , Khwaja-e-Khwajgan
ProfessionIslamic preacher
Muslim leader
Influenced by
Influenced
ProfessionIslamic preacher
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Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan Sijzī (1143–1236), known more commonly as Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī or Moinuddin Chishti, or by the epithet Gharib Nawaz (lit. 'comfort to the poor'),

Amir Khusrow (d. 1325).[6]

Having arrived in

ʿAbdallāh Anṣārī (d. 1088), whose famous work on the lives of the early Islamic saints, the Ṭabāqāt al-ṣūfiyya, may have played a role in shaping Muʿīn al-Dīn's worldview.[6] It was during his time in Ajmer that Muʿīn al-Dīn acquired the reputation of being a charismatic and compassionate spiritual preacher and teacher; and biographical accounts of his life written after his death report that he received the gifts of many "spiritual marvels (karāmāt), such as miraculous travel, clairvoyance, and visions of angels"[10] in these years of his life. Muʿīn al-Dīn seems to have been unanimously regarded as a great saint after his death.[6]

Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī's legacy rests primarily on his having been "one of the most outstanding figures in the annals of Islamic mysticism."[2] Additionally, Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī is also notable, according to John Esposito, for having been one of the first major Islamic mystics to formally allow his followers to incorporate the "use of music" in their devotions, liturgies, and hymns to God, which he did in order to make the 'foreign' Arab faith more relatable to the indigenous peoples who had recently entered the religion.[11]

Early life

Of Persian descent,[12] Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī was born in 1143 in Sistan. He was sixteen years old when his father, Sayyid G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn (d. c. 1155), died,[2] leaving his grinding mill and orchard to his son.[2]

Despite planning to continue his father's business, he developed mystic tendencies in his personal piety

Islamic world.[2]

While traveling to

Najmuddin Kubra (d. 1221), as well as Naj̲īb al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḳāhir Suhrawardī, Abū Saʿīd Tabrīzī, and ʿAbd al-Waḥid G̲h̲aznawī (all d. c. 1230), all of whom were destined to become some of the most highly venerated saints in the Sunni tradition.[2]

South Asia

Arriving in

Ali Hujwiri (d. 1072).[2]

From Lahore, he continued towards

Chishti order of Sunni mysticism in India; many later biographic accounts relate the numerous miracles wrought by God at the hands of the saint during this period.[2]

Preaching in India

Detail of Hazrat Muin-ud-Din from a Guler painting showing an imaginary meeting of Sufi saints

Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī was not the originator or founder of the Chishtiyya order of mysticism as he is often erroneously thought to be. On the contrary, the Chishtiyya was already an established Sufi order prior to his birth, being originally an offshoot of the older Adhamiyya order that traced its spiritual lineage and titular name to the early Islamic saint and mystic Ibrahim ibn Adham (d. 782). Thus, this particular branch of the Adhamiyya was renamed the Chishtiyya after the 10th-century Sunni mystic Abū Isḥāq al-Shāmī (d. 942) migrated to Chishti Sharif, a town in the present day Herat Province of Afghanistan in around 930, in order to preach Islam in that area about 148 years prior to the birth of the founder of the Qadiriyya sufi order, Shaikh Abdul Qadir Gilani. The order spread into the Indian subcontinent, however, at the hands of the Persian Muʿīn al-Dīn in the 13th-century,[7] after the saint is believed to have had a dream in which the Islamic prophet Muhammad appeared and told him to be his "representative" or "envoy" in India.[15][16][17]

According to the various chronicles, Muʿīn al-Dīn's tolerant and compassionate behavior towards the local population seems to have been one of the major reasons behind conversion to Islam at his hand.

Bakhtiar Kaki (d. 1235) as his spiritual successor, who worked at spreading the Chishtiyya in Delhi. Furthermore, Muʿīn al-Dīn's son, Fakhr al-Dīn (d. 1255), is said to have further spread the order's teachings in Ajmer, whilst another of the saint's major disciples, Ḥamīd al-Dīn Ṣūfī Nāgawrī (d. 1274), preached in Nagaur, Rajasthan.[7]

Spiritual lineage

19th century die with the genealogy of the Chishti Order

As with every other major Sufi order, the Chishtiyya proposes an unbroken

companions, which in the Chishtiyya's case is Ali (d. 661).[7] His spiritual lineage is traditionally given as follows:[7]

  1. Muhammad (570 – 632),
  2. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (600 – 661),
  3. Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
    (d. 728),
  4. Abdul Wahid bin Zaid
    (d. 786),
  5. al-Fuḍayl b. ʿIyāḍ
    (d. 803),
  6. Ibrahim ibn Adham al-Balkhī (d. 783),
  7. Khwaja Sadid ad-Din Huzaifa al-Marashi (d. 890),
  8. Abu Hubayra al-Basri (d. 900),
  9. Khwaja Mumshad Uluw Al Dīnawarī
    (d. 911),
  10. Abu Ishaq Shami (d. 941),
  11. Abu Aḥmad Abdal Chishti (d. 966),
  12. Abu Muḥammad Chishti (d. 1020),
  13. Abu Yusuf ibn Saman Muḥammad Samʿān Chishtī (d. 1067),
  14. Maudood Chishti (d. 1133),
  15. Shareef Zandani (d. 1215),
  16. Usman Harooni (d. 1220).
Family Tree / Shajra e Nasab of Hazrat Khwaja Sayyed Moinuddin Hassan Chishti R.A. Engraved on a white marble board in Urdu, Hindi and English Language.

Dargah Sharif

Dargah of Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī, Ajmer, Rajasthan, India
Main article: Ajmer Sharif Dargah

The

Mughal emperor Akbar (d. 1605) visited the shrine no less than fourteen times during his reign.[21]

In the present day, the tomb of Muʿīn al-Dīn continues to be one of the most popular sites of religious visitation for Sunni Muslims in the Indian subcontinent,

Hindu extremists on 11 October 2007 in the Dargah of Sufi Saint Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti at the time of Iftar had left three pilgrims dead and 15 injured. A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Jaipur punished with life imprisonment the two convicts in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah bomb blast case.[22]

Popular culture

Indian films about the saint and his dargah at Ajmer include Mere Gharib Nawaz by G. Ishwar, Sultan E Hind (1973) by K. Sharif, Khawaja Ki Diwani (1981) by Akbar Balam and Mere Data Garib Nawaz (1994) by M Gulzar Sultani.[23][24][25][26] A song in the 2008 Indian film Jodhaa Akbar named "Khwaja Mere Khwaja", composed by A. R. Rahman, pays tribute to Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī.[27][28]

Various qawwalis portray devotion to the saint including Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's "Khwaja E Khwajgan", Sabri Brothers' "Khawaja Ki Deewani"and Koji Badayuni's "Kabhi rab se Mila Diya".[citation needed]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moinuddin Chishti.

References

  1. ^ "Chishti, Mu'in al-Din Muhammad". Oxford Islamic Studies.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Nizami, K.A., "Čis̲h̲tī", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs.
  3. ^ Francesca Orsini and Katherine Butler Schofield, Telling and Texts: Music, Literature, and Performance in North India (Open Book Publishers, 2015), p. 463
  4. ^ a b Arya, Gholam-Ali and Negahban, Farzin, "Chishtiyya", in: Encyclopaedia Islamica, Editors-in-Chief: Wilferd Madelung and, Farhad Daftary: "The followers of the Chishtiyya Order, which has the largest following among Sufi orders in the Indian subcontinent, are Ḥanafī Sunni Muslims."
  5. ^ a b Ḥamīd al-Dīn Nāgawrī, Surūr al-ṣudūr; cited in Auer, Blain, "Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Blain Auer, "Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan", in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Edited by: Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas, Everett Rowson.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Arya, Gholam-Ali; Negahban, Farzin. "Chishtiyya". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica.
  8. ^ See Andrew Rippin (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Quran (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), p. 357.
  9. ^ M. Ali Khan and S. Ram, Encyclopaedia of Sufism: Chisti Order of Sufism and Miscellaneous Literature (Anmol, 2003), p. 34.
  10. ^ Muḥammad b. Mubārak Kirmānī, Siyar al-awliyāʾ, Lahore 1978, pp. 54-58.
  11. ^ John Esposito (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford, 2004), p. 53
  12. ^ Avari 2013, p. 544.
  13. ^ The Chishti Shrine of Ajmer: Pirs, Pilgrims, Practices, Syed Liyaqat Hussain Moini, Publication Scheme, 2004.
  14. ^ a b Sayyad Athar Abbas Rizvi (1978). A History of Sufism in India. Vol. 1. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers. p. 124.
  15. ^ ʿAlawī Kirmānī, Muḥammad, Siyar al-awliyāʾ, ed. Iʿjāz al-Ḥaqq Quddūsī (Lahore, 1986), p. 55
  16. ^ Firishtah, Muḥammad Qāsim, Tārīkh (Kanpur, 1301/1884), 2/377
  17. ^ Dārā Shukūh, Muḥammad, Safīnat al-awliyāʾ (Kanpur, 1884), p. 93.
  18. ^ Rizvi, Athar Abbas, A History of Sufism in India (New Delhi, 1986), I/pp. 116-125
  19. ^ Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad, 'Ṣūfī Movement in the Deccan', in H. K. Shervani, ed., A History of Medieval Deccan, vol. 2 (Hyderabad, 1974), pp. 142-147.
  20. ^ ʿAbd al-Malik ʿIṣāmī, Futūḥ al-salāṭīn, ed. A. S. Usha, Madras 1948, p. 466.
  21. ^ Abū l-Faḍl, Akbar-nāma, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, 3 vols., Calcutta 1873–87.
  22. ^ "Ajmer blast sentence: Life sentence for two in Ajmer Dargah blast case | India News - Times of India". The Times of India. 22 March 2017.
  23. ^ Screen World Publication's 75 Glorious Years of Indian Cinema: Complete Filmography of All Films (silent & Hindi) Produced Between 1913-1988. Screen World Publication. 1988. p. 85.
  24. ^ Ramnath, Nandini (4 September 2015). "Prophets and profit: The miraculous world of Indian devotional films". Scroll.in. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  25. ^ "Sultan E Hind". Eagle Home Entertainments. 3 March 2016.
  26. ^ "Mere Data Garib Nawaz VCD (1994)". Induna.com.
  27. ^ "Jodhaa Akbar Music Review". Planet Bollywood. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 25 May 2015.
  28. ^ "Khwaja Mere Khwaja". Lyrics Translate. Retrieved 25 May 2015.

Sources

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