Muinuddin Chishti

Also called: Khwaja Muinuddin, Gharib Nawaz · Topic: Bhakti and Sufi Traditions · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "Bhakti-Sufi Traditions"

Meaning

Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, also called Muinuddin Sijzi and Gharib Nawaz ("friend of the poor"), was the sufi saint who brought the Chishti order to India in the 12th century [2]. He made Ajmer his base and died there in 1235. His dargah (tomb-shrine of a sufi saint) at Ajmer became the most important centre of the Chishtis. For about 800 years, sultans, emperors and ordinary people have gone there to pray. It is a key example of how sufism blended into Indian society and gave rulers a way to win public support.

Explanation

Background: how the Chishti order reached India

• Several sufi groups came into India in the late 12th century. The Chishtis became the biggest of them.
• The order is named after Chisht, the village where its founder, Abu Ishaq of Syria, settled. Muinuddin did not found the order. He carried it into India [2].
• He kept his headquarters at Ajmer. Muslim traders, craftsmen and soldiers settled around him [3].
• Ajmer lay on the Delhi–Gujarat trade route, so traders and travellers kept passing through. This helped his fame spread.
• His title Gharib Nawaz reflects the Chishti focus on serving the poor.

What Muinuddin's order believed and practised

• Wahdat al-wujud (unity of being): only God truly exists, so all things are one with Him [2].
• Zikr (repeating God's names) was done in two ways: aloud (dhikr jahri) and silently (dhikr khafi) [2].
• Members gave up material goods, were pacifists, and kept no link with the secular state [2].
• Sama' (listening to mystical music) was central to their worship. This later grew into qawwali.
• Adapting to India was the secret of their success. The Chishtis took up local devotional habits instead of standing apart from them.

The line of teachers after him

Chishti teacher	Died	Dargah
Muinuddin Sijzi (Gharib Nawaz)	1235	Ajmer
Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki	1235	Delhi
Fariduddin Ganj-i Shakar (Baba Farid)	1265	Ajodhan (in today's Pakistan)
Nizamuddin Auliya	1325	Delhi
Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli	1356	Delhi

• Through this chain, the order Muinuddin planted at Ajmer spread to Delhi, Punjab and later across the subcontinent.

How the Ajmer dargah grew over the centuries

• 1235: Muinuddin dies at Ajmer.
• 14th century: the earliest written mentions of his dargah appear, about a hundred years after his death.
• Muhammad bin Tughlaq (r. 1324–51) becomes the first Sultan to visit it.
• Late 15th century: Sultan Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa pays for the earliest tomb building.
• 1568: Akbar gives a huge cooking pot, the degh. He also builds a mosque there.
• Up to 1580: Akbar visits fourteen times. He went before conquests, to fulfil vows, and after the birth of his sons.
• 1643: Mughal princess Jahanara goes on pilgrimage. She writes about it in Munis al Arwah, her life-story of Muinuddin.
• Today: hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, many from abroad, come for his urs (death anniversary, seen as the saint's union with God) [3]. The government marks the 813th Urs. Every year the Prime Minister sends a chadar (ceremonial cloth sheet) to be placed on the tomb [4].

Time, place and evidence

• Period: late 12th century to 1235 (his life in India). The shrine's history runs from the Delhi Sultanate through the Mughals to today.
• Place: Ajmer, Rajasthan, on the Delhi–Gujarat trade route.
• Rulers linked to the shrine:
• Muhammad bin Tughlaq (first Sultan to visit)
• Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa (first tomb building)
• Akbar (degh in 1568, a mosque, 14 visits till 1580)

• Jahanara (pilgrimage in 1643)

• How we know:

• 14th-century written records, which are the earliest mentions of the dargah.
• Jahanara's Munis al Arwah (17th century), a biography of the saint.
• Mughal records of Akbar's visits and gifts.

• Government records today, such as the PIB notice on the 813th Urs [4].

• A gap in the sources: there are no written records from the hundred years right after his death. So much of what we know about the early shrine was written long after he died.

Don't confuse with

• Abu Ishaq of Syria: he founded the Chishti order at Chisht. Muinuddin only brought it to India [2].
• Shaikh Salim Chishti: Akbar built Fatehpur Sikri around his dargah, not around Muinuddin's. Akbar's degh and fourteen visits were for Ajmer.
• Nizamuddin Auliya: a later Chishti saint (d. 1325) whose dargah is in Delhi. His khanqah (hospice) was at Ghiyaspur, and he was called sultan-ul-mashaikh. "Gharib Nawaz" is Muinuddin's title.
• Abu'l Hasan al Hujwiri (Data Ganj Bakhsh): an earlier sufi (d. 1073, Lahore) who wrote Kashf-ul-Mahjub. He was not a Chishti, and his shrine is Data Darbar, not Ajmer.

Prelims Hooks

• Muinuddin Sijzi / Gharib Nawaz (d. 1235): dargah at Ajmer. He brought the Chishti order into India. Its founder was Abu Ishaq of Syria [2].
• First Sultan to visit the Ajmer dargah: Muhammad bin Tughlaq (r. 1324–51).
• Earliest tomb building at Ajmer: paid for by Ghiyasuddin Khalji of Malwa (late 15th century). This is a trap, because the patron was not a Delhi Sultan.
• Akbar and Ajmer: degh gifted in 1568, 14 visits up to 1580, and a mosque built.
• Jahanara wrote Munis al Arwah about her 1643 pilgrimage to Ajmer.
• Chishti teachers in order of death: Muinuddin (1235) and Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (1235), then Baba Farid (1265), then Nizamuddin Auliya (1325), then Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli (1356).

Mains Points

• Adapting to India explains Chishti success. Muinuddin's order took up local devotional habits, made music (sama') central, and kept away from courts. This won it support among ordinary people.
• Settling on a trade route at Ajmer drew traders, craftsmen and soldiers around the saint [3].

• The order's rule of no ties to the secular state [2] made people see it as morally pure.

• Rulers needed the saint to win public support. Most of their subjects were not Muslim. So rulers built up their image through the Ajmer dargah instead of relying only on the ulama (scholars of Islamic law).

• Muhammad bin Tughlaq's visit, Ghiyasuddin Khalji's tomb, and Akbar's degh, mosque and fourteen visits all show this.

• The shrine was built up over centuries by royal gifts. The saint himself did not build it.

• Continuity into the present. The urs still draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from many countries [3]. The Prime Minister's yearly chadar [4] shows that the Indian state still honours this shrine as shared heritage, which links medieval sufi devotion to India's composite culture today.

Related concepts

• Chishti silsila
• Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki
• Nizamuddin Auliya
• Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli
• Baba Farid
• Shaikh Salim Chishti
• Gesu Daraz
• Langar
• Sama
• Zikr

Read more

• The Chishtis: khanqah life, devotionalism, language, and the state