"Sima' (to listen to Qawwali) is permissible if a few conditions are met. The singer must be an adult and not a child or a female. The listener must only listen to everything in the remembrance of Allah. The words that are sung must be free from obscenity and indecency and they must not be void. Musical instruments must not be present in the gathering. If all these conditions are met, Sima' is permissible".
"...Someone complained to the Sultan of the Mashaa’ikh that some of the dervishes danced in a gathering where there were musical instruments. He said, they did not do good as something impermissible cannot be condoned".
However, this has been countered by the more historical excerpt of Nizamuddin Auliya's quotation: [6]
The hearing, the person that is being heard should be a mature man and not a young boy or a woman. The audible, the sound that is heard, the lyrics should not be indecent or shameful. The hearer should only hear to gain Divine nearness only and nothing else. The instruments can be any. The hearing is a voice, how can this be Haraam, how can the sounds of lyrics be Haraam? And finally there is the heart being touched and moved by this. How can this be Haraam if it brings the listener closer to Allah?
The Chishtis follow five basic devotional practices (dhikr). [9]
Early Chishti shaykhs adopted concepts and doctrines outlined in two influential Sufi texts: the ʿAwārif al-Maʿārif of Shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī and the Kashf al-Maḥjūb of Ali Hujwīrī. These texts are still read and respected today. Chishtis also read collections of the sayings, speeches, poems, and letters of the shaykhs. These collections, called malfūẓāt, were prepared by the shaykh's disciples. [10]
Sufi orders trace their origins ultimately to the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who is believed to have instructed his successor in mystical teachings and practices in addition to the Qur'an or hidden within the Qur'an. Opinions differ as to this successor. Almost all Sufi orders trace their origins to 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Muhammad's cousin.
The traditional silsila (spiritual lineage) of the Chishti order is as follows: [11]
After Farīduddīn Mas'ūd, the Chishti order divided into two branches:
The Encyclopedia of Islam divides Chishti history into four periods:
The order was founded by Abu Ishaq Shami ("the Syrian") who taught Sufism in the town of Chisht, some 95 miles east of Herat in present-day western Afghanistan. [13] Before returning to Syria, where he is now buried next to Ibn Arabi at Jabal Qasioun, [14] Shami initiated, trained and deputized the son of the local emir, Abu Ahmad Abdal. [15] Under the leadership of Abu Ahmad's descendants, the Chishtiya, as they are also known, flourished as a regional mystical order. [14]
The founder of the Chishti Order in South Asia was Moinuddin Chishti. He was born in the province of Silistan in eastern Persia around 536 AH (1141 CE) into a sayyid family claiming descent from Muhammad. [16] When he was just nine, he memorized the Qur'an, thus becoming a hafiz. His father died when he was a teenager; Moinuddin inherited the family grinding mill and orchard. He sold everything and gave the proceeds to the poor. He traveled to Balkh and Samarkand, where he studied the Qur'an, hadith, and fiqh. [17] He looked for something beyond scholarship and law and studied under the Chishti shaykh Usman Harooni (Harvani). He moved to Lahore and then to Ajmer, where he died. His tomb, in Ajmer, is the Dargah Sharif, a popular shrine and pilgrimage site.
Moinuddin was followed by Qutab-ud-Din Bakhtyar Kaki and Farīduddīn Mas'ūd 'Baba Farid'. After Fariduddin, the Chishti Order of South Asia split into two branches. Each branch was named after one of Fariduddin's successors.
It was after Nizamuddin Auliya that the Chishti Sufism chain spread throughout the Indian Peninsula. Two prominent lines of transmission arose from Nizamuddin Auliya, one from his disciple Nasiruddin Chiragh Dehlavi and the other from another disciple, Akhi Siraj Aainae Hind, who migrated to West Bengal from Delhi on Nizamuddin Auliya's order. Siraj Aanae Hind was followed by his notable disciple Alaul Haq Pandavi settled in Pandava, West Bengal itself. From this chain of transmission another prominent sub-branch of Chishti way emerged known as Ashrafia Silsila after the illustrious saint Ashraf Jahangir Semnani, who was the disciple of Alaul Haq Pandavi in the thirteen century A.D. Later, yet other traditions branched from the Chishti lineage; in many cases they merged with other popular Sufi orders in South Asia.
As a result of this merging of the Chishti order with other branches, most Sufi masters now initiate their disciples in all the four major orders of South Asia: Chishti, Suhrawadi, Qadri, and Naqshbandi. They do however teach devotional practices typical of the order with which they are primarily associated.
The Chishti order has also absorbed influences and merged at times with various antinomian faqiri Sufi groups, especially the Qalandar. Some Chishtis both past and present have lived as renunciants or as wandering dervish. [18]
The first Chishti master in the West was Ḥazrat Pīr-o-Murshid 'Ināyat Khān, who came to the West in 1910 and established centers in Europe and the U.S. His lineage-successors were Pīr Vilāyat 'Ināyat Khān (d. 2004) and Pīr Zīa 'Ināyat-Khān, the current head of the 'Ināyatīyya. This tariqat is unusual in that it accepts seekers of all faiths without asking conversion to formal Islam, a controversial practice but which is customary in the Nizāmi branch going back to Nizāmuddīn Auliya and later made written policy by Shah Kalīmullāh Jahanabadi in the early 1700s CE.
In 1937 the Sufi imam Al-Hajj Wali Akram founded the First Cleveland Mosque, made his Sufi affiliation public and during the 1950s started to introduce new members to the Chishti, making the mosque the first public Sufi center of the United States. [19] [20] In more recent times, a more contemporary expression of traditional Chishti Sufi practices can be found in the establishment of the Ishq-Nuri Tariqa [21] in the 1960s, as a branch of the Chishti-Nizami silsila. [22]
In addition, a number of mixed-Sufi type groups or movements in Islam, have also been influenced by the Chishti Order proper. [23] The best known and most widespread example is of the Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, a Sunni Muslim sect with a huge international following, which is in essence not a proper Sufi organization, though adopting many Sufi customs and traditions. [24]
From the 14th century onwards (during the rule of the Tughluqs), the Chishti Order came to be associated with political prosperity for the Indian subcontinent's Muslim kingdoms. The Delhi Sultanate, Bahmani Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate, and various provincial dynasties associated themselves with Shaikhs of the Chishti Order for good fortune. Shrines of prominent Shaikhs were patronised by ruling dynasties, who made pilgrimages to these sites. Often the founding member of a kingdom paid respects to a Chishti Shaikh as a way of legitimising their new state, and this Shaikh became closely associated with the whole dynasty. For example, fourteen successive Bengal Sultans considered Shaikh 'Ala Al-Haq to be their spiritual master. [25]
Several rulers of the Mughal dynasty of South Asia were Chishti devotees, and they associated with the Order in a similar fashion to the Mughals' predecessors. The emperor Akbar was perhaps the most fervent of them. It is said to be by the blessing of Shaikh Salim Chishti that Akbar's first surviving child, the future Jahangir, was born. The child was named Salim after the sheikh and was affectionately addressed by Akbar as Sheikhu Baba.[ citation needed ]
Akbar also credited the Chishti Shaikhs with his victory at the Siege of Chittorgarh. [25] Akbar had vowed to visit the Chishti dargah, the tomb of Moinuddin Chishti, at Ajmer if he were victorious. He fulfilled his vow by visiting the dargah with his musicians, who played in honor of the sheikh.
Shah Jahan's daughter, Jahanara Begum Sahib, was also a devout follower of the Chishti Order. Shah Jahan's son Aurangzeb patronised various Chishti shrines.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Khawaja Syed Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya, also known as Hazrat Nizamuddin, Sultan-ul-Mashaikh and Mahbub-e-Ilahi, was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, Sufi saint of the Chishti Order, and is one of the most famous Sufis from the Indian Subcontinent. His predecessors were Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, and Moinuddin Chishti, who were the masters of the Chishti spiritual chain or silsila in the Indian subcontinent.
Mu'in al-Din Hasan Chishti Sijzi, known reverentially as Khawaja Gharib Nawaz, was a Persian Islamic scholar and mystic from Sistan, who eventually ended up settling in the Indian subcontinent in the early 13th-century, where he promulgated the Chishtiyya order of Sunni mysticism. This particular Tariqa (order) became the dominant Islamic spiritual order in medieval India. Most of the Indian Sunni saints are Chishti in their affiliation, including Nizamuddin Awliya and Amir Khusrow.
A list of topics related to the topic of Sufism.
Farīduddīn Masūd Ganjshakar, commonly known as Bābā Farīd or Sheikh Farīd, was a 13th-century Punjabi Muslim mystic, poet and preacher. Revered by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs alike, he remains one of the most revered Muslim mystics of South Asia during the Islamic Golden Age.
Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam in which Muslims seek divine love and truth through direct personal experience of God. This mystic tradition within Islam developed in several stages of growth, emerging first in the form of early asceticism, based on the teachings of Hasan al-Basri, before entering the second stage of more classical mysticism of divine love, as promoted by al-Ghazali and Attar of Nishapur, and finally emerging in the institutionalized form of today's network of fraternal Sufi orders, based on Sufis such as Rumi and Yunus Emre. At its core, however, Sufism remains an individual mystic experience, and a Sufi can be characterized as one who seeks the annihilation of the ego in God.
Abu Ishaq Shami was a Muslim scholar who is often regarded as the founder of the Sufi Chishti Order. He was the first in the Chishti lineage (silsila) to live in Chisht and to adopt the name "Chishti", so that, if the Chishti order itself dates back to him, it is one of the oldest recorded Sufi orders. His original name, Shami, implies he came from Syria (ash-Sham). He died in Damascus and lies buried on Mount Qasiyun, where Ibn Arabi was later buried.
Chishti or Chishty is a toponymic surname (nisba) from Chisht in Afghanistan. It is used by people claiming ancestry from Moinuddin Chishti or association with his Chishti Order of Sufism.
Nasiruddin Mahmud Chirag-Dehlavi was a 14th-century mystic-poet and a Sufi saint of the Chishti Order. He was a disciple of Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, and later his successor. He was the last important Sufi of the Chishti Order from Delhi.
Sultan Makhdoom Ashraf Jahangir Semnani (Urdu: سلطان سید مخدوم اشرف جہانگیر سمنانی; was an Iranian Sufi saint from Semnan, Iran. He was the founder of the Ashrafi Sufi order. He is India's third most influential Sufi saint after Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer and Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi.
Khwaja Usman Harooni was an early modern wali or Sufi saint of Islam in India, a successor to Shareef Zandani, sixteenth link in the Silsila of the Chishti order, and master of Moinuddin Chishti. Usman Harooni was born in Haroon, Iran. His year of birth is variously given as 1096, 1116 and 1131 AD. He is also known by the nicknames Abu Noor and Abu Mansur.
Shareef Zandani, also known as Nooruddin, was a Sufi saint in India. He was a successor to Maudood Chishti, 13th link in the Sufi silsila of the Chishti Order, and the peer of Usman Harooni.
Khawajah Syed Qutbuddin Maudood Chishti was an early day Sufi Saint, a successor to his father and master Abu Yusuf Bin Saamaan, twelfth link in the Sufi silsilah of Chishti Order, and the Master of Shareef Zandani. He was born around 430 Hijri in the city of Chisht. He initially received education from his father. He memorized the Qur'an by age 7 and completed his education when he was 16. His work includes two books, Minhaaj ul Arifeen and Khulaasat ul Shariah. He died in the month of Rajab at the age of 97 in 533 AH. He was buried at Chisht like many of the early Chishtiyya.
Wali Kirani was a Muslim saint. His date of birth and date of death are not known, but is believed to have lived around the time of Sultan Hussain Mirza's rule in Herat around 1470.
Sayyid Ahmed Muhiuddin Jeelani Arabic:, popularly known as Noor-ul-Mashaikh or NooriShah Jeelani, He was a mujaddid 20th-century, sufimystic, orator, faqeeh, theologian, mujaddid and Islamic scholar of the Qadri–Chishti Order order from the Indian sub continent. He was a claimed descendant and the 21st generation of the Abdul Qadir Jilani, founder of Qadiriyya order.
Khwaja Haji Dost Muhammad Qandhari was an Afghan Sufi master in the Naqshbandi tradition in the 19th century (1801–1868).
Burhanuddin Gharib was an Indian Sufi of the Chishti Order. He was one of the caliphs of the Sufi Saint Nizamuddin Awliya.
Nizam al-Din, spelled variously Nizamuddin or Nizamüddin or etc. may refer to: