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Aḥmad al-Fārūqī as-Sirhindī (1564-1624) was a South Asian
Islamic scholar In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
from
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
,
Hanafi The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named a ...
jurist, and member of the Naqshbandī Sufi order. He has been described by some followers as a
Mujaddid A ''mujaddid'' ( ar, مجدد), is an Islamic term for one who brings "renewal" ( ar, تجديد, translit=tajdid, label=none) to the religion. According to the popular Muslim tradition, it refers to a person who appears at the turn of every ...
, meaning a “reviver", for his work in rejuvenating Islam and opposing the newly made religion of
Din-i Ilahi The Dīn-i-Ilāhī ( fa, , ), known during its time as Tawḥīd-i-Ilāhī ("Divine Monotheism", ) or Divine Faith, was a new syncretic religion or spiritual leadership program propounded by the Mughal emperor Akbar in 1582, intending to merge ...
and other problematic opinions of Mughal emperor Akbar.Glasse, Cyril, ''The New Encyclopedia of Islam'', Altamira Press, 2001, p.432 While early South Asian scholarship credited him for contributing to conservative trends in Indian Islam, more recent works, notably by ter Haar, Friedman, and Buehler, have pointed to Sirhindi's significant contributions to Sufi epistemology and practices. Most of the Naqshbandī suborders today, such as the Muḥammadī, Haqqānī, Qāsimī, trace their spiritual lineage through Sirhindi as the ''Mujaddidī'' branch. Sirhindi's shrine, known as
Rauza Sharif Rauza Sharif or Shaikh Ahmad al-Faruqī al-Sirhindī Dargah (popularly known as Mujaddid, Alf-Sani) is situated on the Sirhind-Bassi Pathana Road at a small distance to the north of Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib. Sheikh Ahmed Farooqi lived at th ...
, is located in Sirhind,
Punjab, India Punjab (; ) is a state in northern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the north and northeast, Haryana to the south and southeast, and ...
.


Early life and education

Ahmad Sirhindi was born on 26 May 1564 in the village of Sirhind,
Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
. He received most of his early education from his father, 'Abd al-Ahad, his brother, Muhammad Sadiq and from Muhammad Tahir al-Lahuri. He also memorised the Qur'an. He then studied in
Sialkot Sialkot ( ur, ) is a city located in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the capital of Sialkot District and the 13th most populous city in Pakistan. The boundaries of Sialkot are joined with Jammu (the winter capital of Indian administered Jammu and Ka ...
, which had become an intellectual centre under the Kashmir-born scholar Kamaluddin Kashmiri. There he learned
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premise ...
, philosophy and theology and read advanced texts of
tafsir Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
and
hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...
under another scholar from Kashmir, Yaqub Sarfi Kashmiri (1521-1595), who was a sheikh of the tariqa Hamadaniyya
Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani ( fa, میر سید علی همدانی; CE) was a Persian scholar, poet and a Sufi Muslim saint of the Kubrawiya order. He was born in Hamadan, Iran and preached Islam in Central Asia and Kashmir as he travelled to p ...
Sufi Order. Qazi Bahlol Badakhshani taught him
jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
, prophet Muhammad's biography and
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
. Sirhindi also made rapid progress in the Suhrawardī, the Qadirī, and the Chistī traditions, and was given permission to initiate and train followers at the age of 17. He eventually joined the Naqshbandī order through the Sufi missionary Khwaja Baqi Billah, and became a leading master of this order. His deputies traversed the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
in order to popularize the order and eventually won favour with the Mughal court.


Views

Ahmad Sirhindi's teaching emphasized the inter-dependence of both the Sufi path and sharia, stating that "what is outside the path shown by the prophet is forbidden." Arthur Buehler explains that Sirhindi's concept of shariah is a multivalent and inclusive term encompassing outward acts of worship, faith, and the Sufi path. Sirhindi emphasizes Sufi initiation and practices as a necessary part of shariah, and criticizes jurists who follow only the outward aspects of the sharia. In his criticism of the superficial jurists, he states: "For a worm hidden under a rock, the sky is the bottom of the rock." Sirhindi also wrote a treatise under the title "''Radd-e-Rawafiz''" to justify the execution of Shia nobles by Abdullah Khan Uzbek in Mashhad. In this he argues:
"Since the Shia permit cursing Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and one of the chaste wives (of the Prophet), which in itself constitutes infidelity, it is incumbent upon the Muslim ruler, nay upon all people, in compliance with the command of the Omniscient King (Allah), to kill them and to oppress them in order to elevate the true religion. It is permissible to destroy their buildings and to seize their property and belongings."
He has expressed his hate towards Shias in his letters too. According to him, the worst distorters of faith "are those who bear malice against the companions of Prophet Muhammad. God has called them Kafirs in the Quran". In a letter to his discple Sheikh Farid, the Mir Bakhshi of the Mughal empire, he said that showing respect to the distorters of faith ( ''ahl-e-Bidʻah'') amounted to destruction of Islam. In his Makutbat letter 193 he is said to have stated "The execution of the accursed Kafir of Goindwal (Guru Arjan Dev Ji) at this time is a very good achievement indeed and has become the cause of a great defeat of the hateful Hindus."
Jahangir writes in his Tuzuk that he had the Guru put to death and had his property confiscated. Mujaddid-i-Alf Thani Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindi (1564-1624), as a hard-line supporter of Islamic orthodoxy and a highly influential religious revivalist, had opposed Akbar’s policy of religious tolerance. He had concerns about the spread of Sikhism in Punjab. So he cheered on the murder of the Guru, thus giving it a religious rather than political colour.


Importance of Sufism in Shari’ah

According to Simon Digby, "modern hagiographical literature emphasizes Sirhindi's reiterated profession of strict Islamic orthodoxy, his exaltation of the
shariah Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
and exhortations towards its observance."Review by Simon Digby of Yohanan Friedmann ''Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: an outline of his thought and a study of his image in the eyes of posterity'', McGill-Queen's University Press, 1971
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 38, No. 1 (1975), pp. 177-179
On the other hand, Yohanan Friedmann questions how committed Sirhindi was to shariah by commenting: "it is noteworthy that while Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi never wearies of describing the minutest details of Sufi experience, his exhortations to comply with the shariah remain general to an extreme." Friedmann also claims "Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi was primarily a Sufi interested first and foremost in questions of mysticism." Sirhindi wrote a letter to Mughal emperor
Jehangir Nur-ud-Din Muhammad Salim (30 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was the fourth Mughal Emperor, who ruled from 1605 until he died in 1627. He was named after the Indian Sufi saint, Salim Chishti. Ear ...
emphasizing that he is now correcting the wrong path taken by his father, emperor Akbar.


Oneness of appearance and oneness of being

Ahmad Sirhindi advanced the notion of ''wahdat ash-shuhūd'' (oneness of appearance). According to this doctrine, the experience of unity between God and creation is purely subjective and occurs only in the mind of the Sufi who has reached the state of '' fana' fi Allah'' (to forget about everything except Almighty Allah). Sirhindi considered ''wahdat ash-shuhūd'' to be superior to ''wahdat al-wujūd'' (oneness of being), which he understood to be a preliminary step on the way to the Absolute Truth. Despite this, Sirhindi still used Ibn al-'Arabi's vocabulary without hesitation. Sirhindi writes:
I wonder that Shaykh Muhyī 'l-Dīn appears in vision to be one of those with whom God is pleased, while most of his ideas which differ from the doctrines of the People of truth appear to be wrong and mistaken. It seems that since they are due to error in ''kashf'', he has been forgiven... I consider him as one of those with whom God is well-pleased; on the other hand, I believe that all his ideas in which he opposes (the people of truth) are wrong and harmful.
On the other hand, William C. Chittick, a prominent Ibn 'Arabi scholar, writes:
When Sirhindī explains the meaning of waḥdat al-wujūd, he demonstrates little acquaintance with the writings of Ibn ʿArabī or his major followers. By insisting that it was an inadequate expression of the nature of things and that it needed to be supplanted by waḥdat al-shuhūd, he was taking for granted that it was the teaching of Ibn ʿArabī and that wujūd was being used in the philosophical sense. He seemed not to recognize that Ibn ʿArabī used it to mean “finding” and “witnessing” as well as “being” and “existence.” So, at least partly because Sirhindī was oblivious to the meaning of wujūd as finding and perceiving, he felt it necessary to insist that seeing God in all things goes back to the viewer. The unity achieved on the path to God, he claimed, is that of shuhūd, not that of wujūd. But, for Ibn ʿArabī and many of his followers these two words meant the same thing. So Sirhindī not only ascribes a doctrine to Ibn ʿArabī that he does not profess—waḥdat al-wujūd—but he also understands wujūd in a way that is not compatible with Ibn ʿArabī’s use of the word.


Reality of the Quran and Ka'ba versus the reality of Muhammad

Sirhindi had originally declared the reality of the Quran ''(haqiqat-i quran'') and the reality of the Ka'ba (''haqiqat-i ka'ba-yi rabbani'') to be above the reality of Muhammad (''haqiqat-i Muhammadi''). This caused fury of opposition, particularly among certain Sufis and ulama of Hijaz who objected to the Ka'ba having exalted spiritual "rank" than the Prophet. Sirhindi argued in response that the reality of the Prophet is superior to any creature. The real Ka'ba is worthy of prostration since it is not created and is covered with the veil of nonexistence. It is this Ka'ba in the essence of God that Sirhindi was referring to as the reality of the Ka'ba, not the appearance of the Ka'ba (''surat-i ka'ba''), which is only a stone. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the consensus of the Naqshbandi community had placed the prophetic realities closer to God than the divine realities. The rationale for this development may have been to neutralize unnecessary discord with the large Muslim community whose emotional attachment to Muhammad was greater than any understanding of philosophical fine points.


Sufi lineage


Naqshbandi chain

Naqshbandi
Sufis Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...
claim that Ahmad Sirhindi is descended from a long line of "spiritual masters" all the way up to
prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
. #
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
, d. 11 AH, buried in
Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...
, Saudi Arabia (570/571–632 CE) # Abu Bakar Siddique, d. 13 AH, buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia #
Salman al-Farsi Salman the Persian or Salmān al-Fārsī ( ar, سَلْمَان ٱلْفَارِسِيّ), born Rūzbeh Khoshnūdān ( fa, ), was a Persian companion (Sahaba) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was raised as a Zoroastrian in Sasanian Persia, t ...
, d. 35 AH, buried in Madaa'in,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
# Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, d. 107 AH, buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia. # Jafar Sadiq, d. 148 AH, buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia. # Bayazid Bastami, d. 261 AH, buried in Bastaam,
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
(804 - 874 CE). # Abu al-Hassan al-Kharaqani, d. 425 AH, buried Kharqaan, Iran. # Abul Qasim Gurgani, d. 450 AH, buried in Gurgan, Iran. # Abu ali Farmadi, d. 477 AH, buried in Tous, Khorasan, Iran. # Abu Yaqub
Yusuf Hamadani Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf al-Hamadānī, best simply known as Yusuf Hamadani (born 1048 or 1049 / 440 AH - died 1140 / 535 AH), was a Persian figure of the Middle Ages. He was the first of the group of Central Asian Sufi teachers known simply as '' ...
, d. 535 AH, buried in Maru, Khorosan, Iran. # Abdul Khaliq Ghujdawani, d. 575 AH, buried in Ghajdawan, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. # Arif Riwgari, d. 616 AH, buried in Reogar, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. # Mahmood Anjir-Faghnawi, d. 715 AH, buried in Waabakni,
Mawarannahr Transoxiana or Transoxania (Land beyond the Oxus) is the Latin name for a region and civilization located in lower Central Asia roughly corresponding to modern-day eastern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, parts of southern Kazakhstan, parts of Tu ...
, Uzbekistan. # Azizan Ali Ramitani, d. 715 AH, buried in Khwarezm, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. # Mohammad Baba As-Samasi, d. 755 AH, buried in Samaas, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. # Amir Kulal, d. 772 AH, buried in Saukhaar, Bukhara, Uzbekistan. #
Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari Baha' al-Din Naqshband ( fa, بهاءالدین محمد نقشبند; 1318–1389) was the eponymous founder of what would become one of the largest Sufi Sunni orders, the Naqshbandi. Background Baha al-Din was born in March 1318 in the v ...
, d. 791 AH, buried in Qasr-e-Aarifan, Bukhara, Uzbekistan (1318–1389 CE). # Sayyid Alauddin Atar Bukhari, buried in Jafaaniyan, Mawranahar, Uzbekistan. # Yaqub al-Charkhi, d. 851 AH, buried in Tajikistan # Khwaja Ahrar, d. 895 AH, buried in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. # Muhammad Zahid Wakhshi, d. 936 AH, buried in Wakhsh, Malk Hasaar,
Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
# Darwish Muhammad, d. 970 AH, buried in Samarkand,
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
# Muhammad Amkanagi, d. 1008 AH, buried in Akang, Bukhara,
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
# Khwaja Baqi Billah, d. 1012 AH, buried in
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
# Ahmad al-Farūqī al-Sirhindī


See also

*
Mujaddid A ''mujaddid'' ( ar, مجدد), is an Islamic term for one who brings "renewal" ( ar, تجديد, translit=tajdid, label=none) to the religion. According to the popular Muslim tradition, it refers to a person who appears at the turn of every ...
*
Ali Hujwiri Abu 'l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān b. ʿAlī al-Ghaznawī al-Jullābī al-Hujwīrī (c. 1009-1072/77), known as ʿAlī al-Hujwīrī or al-Hujwīrī (also spelt Hajweri, Hajveri, or Hajvery) for short, or reverentially as Shaykh Syed ʿAlī al- ...


References


Further reading

* Dr. Burhan Ahmad Faruqi,
Mujaddid’s Conception of Tawhid
', 1940 * Shari'at and Ulama in Ahmad Sirhindi's ''Collected Letters'' by Arthur F. Buehler.


External links





(from the Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order).
Translations of Imam Rabbani's Letters in various languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sirhindi, Ahmad 1564 births 1624 deaths 17th-century Indian Muslims Naqshbandi order Critics of atheism People from Fatehgarh Sahib Sunni Sufis Islamic philosophers Hanafi fiqh scholars Hanafis Maturidis Mujaddid Hashemite people Punjabi people Indian Sufi saints 16th-century jurists 17th-century jurists Critics of Ibn Arabi