Chishti Muʿin al-Din Ḥasan Sijzi (b. February 1, 1143, Herat, Ghaznavid Empire [today in Afghanistan] – d. March 15, 1236, Ajmer, Delhi Sultanate [today in India]), known more commonly as Muʿin al-Din Chishti, or Moinuddin Chishti, or by the epithet Gharib Nawaz (lit. "comfort to the poor"), or reverently as a Shaykh Muʿin al-Din, or Muʿin al-Din, or Khwaja Muʿin al-Din by Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, was a Persian Sunni Muslim preacher and Sayyid ascetic, religious scholar, philosopher, and mystic from Sistan. Mu'in al-Din Chishti eventually ended up settling in the Indian subcontinent in the early 13th-century, where he promulgated the famous Chishtiyya order of Sunni mysticism. This particular tariqa (order) became the dominant Muslim spiritual group in medieval India and many of the most beloved and venerated Indian Sunni saints were Chishti in their affiliation, including Nizamuddin Awliya (d. 1325) and Amir Khusrow (d. 1325).
Having arrived in Delhi during the reign of the sultan Iltutmish (d. 1236), Muʿin al-Din moved from Delhi to Ajmer shortly thereafter, at which point he became increasingly influenced by the writings of the famous Sunni Hanbali scholar and mystic 'Abdallah Ansari (d. 1088), whose famous work on the lives of the early Islamic saints, the Ṭabaqat al-ṣufiyya, may have played a role in shaping Muʿin al-Din's worldview. It was during his time in Ajmer that Muʿin al-Din acquired the reputation of being a charismatic and compassionate spiritual preacher and teacher. Biographical accounts of his life written after his death report that he received the gifts of many "spiritual marvels (karamat), such as miraculous travel, clairvoyance, and visions of angels". In these years of his life, Muʿin al-Din seems to have been unanimously regarded as a great saint.
Muʿin al-Din Chishti's legacy rests primarily on his having been "one of the most outstanding figures in the annals of Islamic mysticism." Additionally Muʿin al-Din Chishti is 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.
Born in 1143 in Sistan, Muʿin al-Din Chishti was sixteen years old when his father, Sayyid G̲h̲iyat̲h̲ al-Din (d. c. 1155), died, leaving his grinding mill and orchard to his son. G̲h̲iyat̲h̲ al-Din and mother, Bibi Ummalwara (alias Bibi Mahe-Noor), were Sayyids, or descendants of Muhammad, through his grandsons Hassan and Hussain.
Despite planning to continue his father's business, Mu'in developed mystic tendencies in his personal piety and soon entered a life of destitute itineracy. He enrolled at the seminaries of Bukhara and Samarkand, and visited the shrines of Muhammad al-Bukhari (d. 870) and Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944), two widely venerated figures in the Islamic world.
While traveling to Iraq, in the district of Nishapur, Mu'in al-Din came across the famous Sunni mystic Ḵh̲waj̲a ʿUt̲h̲man, who initiated him. Accompanying his spiritual guide for over twenty years on the latter's journeys from region to region, Muʿin al-Din also continued his own independent spiritual travels during the time period. It was on his independent wanderings that Muʿin al-Din encountered many of the most notable Sunni mystics of the era, including Abdul-Qadir Gilani (d. 1166) and Najmuddin Kubra (d. 1221), as well as Naj̲ib al-Din ʿAbd al-Ḳahir Suhrawardi, Abu Saʿid Tabrīzi, and ʿAbd al-Waḥid G̲h̲aznawi, all of whom were destined to become some of the most highly venerated saints in the Sunni tradition.
Arriving at South Asia in the early thirteenth century, Muʿin al-Din first traveled to Lahore to meditate at the tomb-shrine of the famous Sunni mystic and jurist Ali Hujwiri (d. 1072).
From Lahore, Mu'in al-Din continued towards Ajmer where he settled and married two wives, the first was a daughter of Saiyad Wajiuddin, whom he married in the year 1209/10. The second was the daughter of a local Hindu raja. He went on to have three sons—Abu Saʿid, Fak̲h̲r al-Din and Ḥusam al-Din — and one daughter Bibi Jamal. Both sons are believed to be from the daughter of a Hindu raja. After settling in Ajmer, Muʿin al-Din strove to establish the 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.
Muʿin al-Din Chishti 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 Abu Isḥaq al-Shami (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. The order spread into the Indian subcontinent, however, at the hands of the Persian Muʿin al-Din in the 13th-century, 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.
According to the various chronicles, Muʿin al-Din's toIerant and compassionate behavior towards the local population seems to have been one of the major reasons behind conversion to Islam at his hand. Muʿin al-Din Chishti is said to have appointed Bakhtiar Kaki (d. 1235) as his spiritual successor, who worked at spreading the Chishtiyya in Delhi. Furthermore, Muʿin al-Din's son, Fakhr al-Din (d. 1255), is said to have further spread the order's teachings in Ajmer, whilst another of the saint's major disciples, Ḥamid al-Din Ṣufi Nagawri (d. 1274), preached in Nagaur, Rajasthan.
The tomb (dargah) of Mu'in al-Din became a deeply venerated site in the century following the preacher's death in March 1236. Honored by members of all social classes, the tomb was treated with great respect by many of the era's most important Sunni rulers, including Muhammad bin Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi from 1324–1351, who paid a famous visit to the tomb in 1332 to commemorate the memory of the saint. In a similar way, the later Mughal emperor Akbar (d. 1605) visited the shrine no less than fourteen times during his reign.
In the present day, the tomb of Muʿin al-Din continues to be one of the most popular sites of religious visitation for Sunni Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, with hundreds of thousands of people from all over the Indian sub-continent assembling there on the occasion of [the saint's] ʿurs or death anniversary. Additionally, the site also attracts many Hindus, who have also venerated the Islamic saint since the medieval period.
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The Chishti Order is a tariqa, an order or school within the mystic Sufi tradition of Sunni Islam. The Chishti Order is known for its emphasis on love, tolerance, and openness. It began with Abu Ishaq Shami in Chisht, a small town near Herat, Afghanistan, about 930 CC.
The Chishti Order is primarily followed in Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent. It was the first of the four main Sufi orders (Chishti, Qadiri, Suhrawardi and Naqshbandi) to be established in this region. Mu'in al-Din Chishti introduced the Chishti Order in Ajmer (Rajasthan, India) sometime in the middle of the 12th century. He was eighth in the line of succession from the founder of the Chishti Order, Abu Ishaq Shami. There are now several branches of the order, which has been the most prominent South Asian Sufi brotherhood since the 12th century.
In the last century, the order has spread outside Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent. Chishti teachers have established centers in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and Eastern and Southern Africa.
The Chishti shaykhs have stressed the importance of keeping a distance from worldly power. A ruler could be a patron or a disciple, but he or she was always to be treated as just another devotee. A Chishti teacher should not attend the court or be involved in matters of state, as this will corrupt the soul with worldly matters. In his last discourse to his disciples, Mu'in al-Din said:
Chishti practice is also notable for Sama: evoking the divine presence by listening to and losing oneself in a form of music and poetry, usually Qawwali. The Chishti, and some other Sufi orders, believe that Sama can help devotees forget the self in their love of Allah. However, the order also insists that followers observe the full range of Muslim obligations; it does not dismiss them as mere legalism, as some strands of Sufism have done.
The Chishtis follow five basic devotional practices (dhikr).
- Reciting the names of Allah loudly, sitting in the prescribed posture at prescribed times (dhikr-i jali)
- Reciting the names of Allah silently (dhikr-i khafi)
- Regulating the breath (pas-i anfas)
- Absorption in mystic contemplation (mura-ḳaba)
- Forty days or more days of spiritual confinement in a lonely corner or cell for prayer and contemplation (cilla)
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Ernst, Carl W. and Lawrence, Bruce B. (2002). Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond. New York City, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Esposito, John L. (1998). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford University Press.
Gabrieli, Francesco (1984). Arab Historians of the Crusades. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lapidus, Ira M. (2014). A History of Islamic Societies; New York City, New York, Cambridge University Press.
Rizvi, Athar Abbas (1986). A History of Sufism in India. New Delhi, India.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chishti_Order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27in_al-Din_Chishti
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