Sufism

In India
Edited by
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Emili Rumi Swapan Kumar Sarkar .

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 SUFISM IN INDIA
. INTERPRETATIVE ESSAYS

Edited by
EmiliRumi
Swapan Kumar Sarkar
Department of History, Sripat Singh College
Murshidabad, West Bengal

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 SUFISM IN INDIA : INTERPRETATIVE ESSAYS
Edited by Emili Rumi & Swapan Kumar Sarkar

First Publication : September 2016

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 Contents
Preface V

Foreword vii
I. Muslim Mystics and Sufi Silsilahs in the India
Amit Dey 15
. 2. Indo-Persian Sufi-Poets and the Landscape
of Hazrat-i-Dihli
Gulfishan Khan 41
3. Shaikh Fazlullah: A Suhrawardia Sufi of Delhi
Salim Zaweed 53
4. The Madari Fakir and the Fakir Rebellion
in the Late Eighteenth Century Bengal
Tusher Baran Halder 59
5. The Influence of Sufism in Medieval Chittagong:
The Muluk (Land) of Twelve Awliya
Ashif Zamal Lasker 68
6. Emergence of Muslim Baul Fakir As an
Offshoot of Sufism: A Case Study of Murshidabad
Firoj High Sarwar 80
7. Sufism : Manifestation of Cultural and
_Religious Syncretism in the District •f Murshidabad
Emili Rumi 89
8. Interface between Erotic and Mystic :
Re-visiting the Sufi Verses of Rumi and Khayyam
Anupama Chowdhury 95
9. Sufism- a Spiritual Journey to the Ultimate
Reality and Peace
Nasiruddin Mondal 103
10. Sufism in Bengal: Tolerance and Unity
Subrata Roy 111

xiii
 Shaikh Fazlullah:
A Suhrawardia Sufi of Delhi
Salim Zaweed

S ufism, a key expression of the spirituality of

Islam, asks of the initiate that he devote himself
to the greater Jihad, that is, to the struggle against
the various passions and illusions which assail him. 1
This is so that he can find an inner space in which
he can contemplate the realities of the Spirit. Having
the Koran as it source, it is based on the· example
of the Prophet. 2
It is said that there are thousand definitions of
Sufism. 3 Sufism represents the inward or esoteric
side of Islam, so it may describe as the mystical
dimension of Islam. It can also be defined as an
aspect of the eternal Wisdom. 4
As we all know, the Suhrawardia Silsii la5 was
originated by Shaikh Shihabuddi!} Suhrawardi and
the real founders of this order in lhdia6, however,
were Shaikh Bahauddin Zakariyya (1182-1262) 7
and Shaikh Jalauddin Tabrizi 8• The establishment of
a strong Suhrawardia centre in Delhi occurred mainly
because of the eminence of Shaikh Samauddin. He

53
 Sufism in India : Interpretative Essays
54
. ·n the reign of Sultan Bahlol Lodi (1451-89) 9 0 .
came to Delh1 1 .. • 11.1s
. d ~ame was prompted under the Sultan Sikandar L ct·
sanctity an 1 • . . o1
(1489-1517). On 2nd February 149~ ~e died ~nd was buried on the
embankment of the hauz-i shamsh1 m _D~lhi. Amongst a number
of Shaikh Samauddin's disting~ished_ 1~sc1ples, the leading figure
-was -Dervesh-Jamali-K-ambo- D1hlaw1. - . . .
Hamid bin Fazlullah, a sufi 11 ofSuiiia\Vardi order and poet who
lived from Sik.andar Lodi's -reign to that of Humayun, was also .
known as Jalal Khan and Jamali. --His_name was Jalal and his pen
name was Jalali, bi{t-he later changed it to Jamali at the suggestion
of his preceptor, Shaikh Samauddin. 12 He came from a sunni
merchant family of Kambo lineage but was initiated into Sufism
by the teacher Hazrat Shaikh Sama'al Din Kambo. ·ouring the reign
of the later Lodis rose to considerable prominence. He was the tutor
of Sultan Sikandar Lodi and had married the daughter of Hazrat
Shaikh Samauddin Kambo. He slowly worked his way up and by
his constant devotion to the pursuit of learning, gradually rose to
distinction. He also enjoyed the patronage of the first two Mughal
sovereigns and later composed panegyrics 13 to the first of the
Mughal emperor, Babur and his successor Humayun. 14 As a poet
of Persian language, Shaikh Jamali had been styled Khusrau-i San?
(Khusrau ·the second). 15
I.

Jamali was passionately fond of travelling and embarked on a

long journey at the time Sultan Bahlol Lodi was on the throne of
Delhi. By then he was a famed poet who was known even in Heart.
During his lifetime he travelled to a number of places according
to ~s own account, included various places in India, Mecca,
~~dma, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Middle East, which he
.visited towards the close of the 15th century. The extensive journeY
~ro~ided him with an opportunity of meeting well known schol~S
m his field including the two celebrated writers on ethics, JataiuddiO
Dawwani and H • ,,, . • al poet,
. 16. usam vva1z Kashfi and the great mystic d'
Jam1 Ati _ · . ' LO 1 ·
. . .· ter his retummg from Heart to Delhi Sikandar
mv1ted h' S ' . rable
· im to ambhal and accorded him very honou
 Shaikh Fazlullah: A Suhrawardia Sufi of Delhi 55

· 11 H ·
reception. e contmued his friendly relations with the Sultan
throughout the latter's reign. He also enjoyed the patronage of the
first two Mughal sovereigns whom he praised in his verses.
He composed a number of poems, including the two masnavis
Mihr wa M a~_and Mia t al-Maani, a love story with a mystic theme.
His Siyaru I Arifin, written between 1530 and 1536, contains an
account of the Chisti and Suhrawardi Sufi saints of his day. It
contains an account of the lives of fourteen Indian saints, beginning
with Muinuddin Chishti 18 and ending with his own preceptor,
Samauddin. The work is valuable not only as contemporary source
for the cultural study of the period, but also for the light it throws
on the character of the three Lodi monarchs. Jamali was one of the
great poets of his time and could be compared to his Persian
contemporary 19 , Jami, as well as the latter's illustrious predecessor,
Nizami of Ganja. 20 According to Mihr wa M?h (Fol. 15), Jamali
also claimed the title of 'Indian parrot', which had earlier been
reserved for Amir Khusrau of Delhi ( 1253-1337). 21 The chronogram
in his tomb, is Khusrau-i Hind b?da, 'He was the sun of India' or
he was the Khusrau of India. 22
He accompanied Humayun to Gujarat and died there on May
2, 1536.23 His body was brought back to Delhi and buried in a room
which in 1528-29, he had built for his dwelling, together with a
mosque in the old village of Qutub Sahib or present Mehrauli. Later
on he was buried here in the tomb of Zainuddin which is by side
24
of the mosque which his son Shaikh Gadai built.
25
Towards the north of his mosque at Mehrauli , lies his tomb
and several more unmarked and unadorned graves around it-Muslims
believe that the tomb of a saint sanctifies the area around it and
assures ascension to heaven to the people buried in its vicinity.
Shaikh Fazlullah (Jamali) died in 1535-36 and it is said that his
26
tomb was commencea prior to his death in the year A.D. 1528-29.
But if we believe on Shahnawaj Khan's Ma'asir-ul Umara, it ~as
27
built by his son Shaikh Gadai and after his death.
56 Sufism in India : Interpretative Essays

Jamali had two sons, the Younger Shaikh Abdul Hai (1517-18)
was also a poet. He was a member of the court of the Afghan Sher
Shah (1539-45) and accompanied him on his campaigns. Islam
28
Shah (1545-52) also patronized him. He died in 1551-52. Abdul
Hai's elder brother, Shaikh Gadai remained loyal to the Mughals.
After Humayun's flight from Delhi, the Shaikh migrated to Gujarat.
in 1542, he joined Humayun at Jun, a town in Sindh. With his
family, Shaikh Gadai left for Mecca. Prior to Akbar's victory in
second battle of Panipat (November 5, 1556), the Shaikh returned
to Delhi and joined the Mughal army. Under Akbar, he enjoyed the
post of sadrus sad?r, the controller of land and stipends granted for
religious purposes. So great was his prestige in Akbar's government
that his sama assemblies were attended by both the emperor and
Bairam Khan. 29 But his administration was generally unpopular and
his alleged role in the rebellion of Bairam Khan discredited Gadai.
After Bairam Khan's fall from power and assassination near Patan
on 31 January 1561, Shaikh Gadai's fortune is also diminished. In
his last age, he lived in Delhi over a minor madad-i ma'ash and
finally died in 1568-69.30
The tomb chamber at Mehrauli contains specimens of sixteen
couplets of his writing in the pen name of Jamali, the composer31 :

References :
1. Eric Geoffroy, Introduction to Sufism: The Inner Path of Islam, World
Wisdom lnc., 2010, p. xvii.
2. Nile Green, Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books
and Empires in the Muslim Deccan, Routledge, 2006, p. xiv. In other
words we can say that, Sufism or to give it its proper appellation,
tasawwuf, has its ?figin in the teaching of and in the personality of
the Prophet Mohammud. It may have begun in a state of ecstasy; and
that phase of mind always has remained the sublime mystery of all
mysteries. See, Sardar Iqbal Ali Shah, Islamic Sufism, Rider and co.,
London, 1933, p. •15.
3. It is said that "The Sufi is he .whose heart is safa (sincere) towards
God". Some said that "The Sufi is he whose conduct towards God is
sincere, and towards whom God's blessing is sincere". See Arthur John
 Shaikh Fazlullah: A Suhrawardia Sufi of Delhi 57

Arberry, The Doctrine of the Sufis, translation of Kitab al-Taarrfu li-

madhhab ahl al-Tasawwuf, Cambridge Universi·ty Press, cam bn'dge,
1935, P. 5.
4. Saiyid Athar Abb_as Riz:i, A History of Sufism in India, Vol-I: Early
Sufism and Its History m India to 1600 A.D, Munshiram Manoharlal
Publishers Pvt Ltd., New Delhi, 1978.
5. The founder of the School of Illumination (ishr?q) in the tradition of
Islamic philosophy was Shihabuddin Yahya Suhrawardi, the philosopher
and mystic. For the other details of the Suhrawardi Silsila, see Mehdi
Amin Rezavi, Suhrawardi and the School of Illumination, Routledge,
. 1997, p. xv.
6. The first great Sufi saint to visit India (undivided) was Ali al-Hujwiri
popularly known in India as Data Ganj Bakshsh. He was a. disciple
of Mohammad al-Hasan al Khuttali who was connected with Junaid
of Baghdad. R. K. Gupta, Sufism Beyond Religion, B. R. Publishing
Corporation, Delhi, 1950, p. 138.
7. For the details of his biography, see N. Hanif, Biographical Encyclopedia
of Sufis (South Asia), Sarup & Sons, New Delhi, pp. 395-398.
8. Shaikh Jalaluddin was born at Tabriz in Persia and was a disciple of
Shaikh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi and died about 1346 A.O. See
Biographical Encyclopedia of Sufis (South Asia), pp. 167-171.
9. Rizqullah Mushtaqi, Waqiat-i Mushtaqi, pp. 314-15.
.
1·
10. Sh?h Nawaz Kh?n, Ma'?siru-1 Umar? (c.1742-80), tr. by H. Beveridge,
Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1911, Vol. II, p. 540; Tadhkira-yi. Musannifin-
i-Dehli, pp. 18-19; Khazinat al-Asfiya, p. 754; Carr Stephen,
Archaeological and monumental remains of Delhi, Ludhiana, 1876, p.
171.
11. It is said that the term Sufi derived from safa (purity) and the true
Sufi is he that leaves impurity (kadar) behind. Ali Ushman Al-Jullabi
AI-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub, translated by Reynold A. Nicholson,
London, 1911, pp. 30-31.
12. Siyar al- Arifin, India Office Library, fol. 277a.
13. He wrote numerous panegyrics to extol the four successive monarchs
under whom he lived, but he was most lavish in his praise of Sultan
Sikandar Lodi.
14. 'Abdul Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab-ut Taw ari kh (1595), translated by
Ranking, I, Royal Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 1898 p. 347.
15. Sufism Beyond Religion, p. 141. ·
16. Nuruddin Abdul Rahman Jami was born in Jam on November 7, 1414
A.O. and died at Heart the November 9, 1492. For other detail see
, F. Hadland Da\'is, Wisdom of the East: The Persian Mystics Jami,
58 Sufism in India Interpretative Essays

John Murray, London, 1908.

17. Hameeduddin, 'Indian Cu]ture in the Late Su]tanate Period: A Short
Study', East and West, VoJ. 12, No. 1, 1961, p. 25.
18. He was the founder of the Chistiya order of saints in India, and had
settled at Ajmer, where he died in 1236. Iqbal Ali Shah, Islamic Sufism,
London, 1933, p. 285.
19. For the details of several Persian sufis of the sixteenth century, see
Cyprian Rice 0. P., The Persian Sufis, George Allen & ·Unwin Ltd.,
London, 1964.
20. J. T. P. De Bruijn, Persian Poetry: An Introduction to the Mystical Use
of Classical Persian Poems, Curzon Press, 1997, pp. 34, 97.
21. Anna Suvorova, Muslim Saints of South Asia: the eleventh to fifteenth
centuries, Curion Press, London, 1999, pp. 85, 99, 126.
22. Hameeduddin, ---P.~ 28. -·
23. 'Abu 'l Fazl, A 'an-i Akbari (c.1595), ed., H. Blochmann, Bib. Ind.,
Calcutta, 1867-77, .VoL I, p. 528; Abdul Qadir Badauni, Muntakh?b-
ut Taw ar i kh, translated by George S. A. Ranking, Vol. I, Idarah-i
Adabiyat-i Delli, D_elhi, 1898, p. 455.
24. Shahnawaz· Kh<UI, Ma' asiru-1 Umara, translated by Henry Beveridge,
VoJ. I, 1979. pp. 268-270. Maulivi Mohammad Shamsuddin, Darbar-
i Akbari, Nawal Kishore Press, Lahore, 1910, pp. 770-772.
25. Mehrauli Archaeological Park set in the midst of Mehrauli Village and
Qutub Complex in Delhi, is familiar to most visitors to the city. Before
named as Mehrauli, the place is known as Daud Sarai. See Maulvi
Muhammad Ashraf Husain, A Reco,rd of All the Quranic and Non-
Historical Epigraphs on The Protected Monuments in the Delhi
Province, Government of India Central Publication Branch, Calcutta,
.,,,J936, p. 96.
26. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Asar-us Sanadid, Vol. II, The Nami Press,
Cawnpore, 1904, p. 47; Percy Brown, II, pp. 61, 64.
27. Ma'asiru-1 Umar?, Vol. I, p. 269.
28. Abbas lQlan Sherwani, Tarikh-i Shershahi, Dacca,_ 1964, pp. 177-78.
29. Muntakhub-ut Tawarikh, III, pp. 76-77.
30. Ibid., II, p. 14.
31. Maulvi Muhammad Ashraf Husain, A Record of All the Quranic and
Non-Historical Epigraphs ori The Protected Monuments in the Delhi
Province, Government of India Central Publication Branch, Calcutta,
1936, p. 96.