A Second 'Alī: The making of Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī in popular imagination

Muslim World

Volumn 90, Issue 3-4, 2000, Pages 395-420

  Elias, Jamal J ^a  

^a AMHERST COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61149126894     PISSN: 00274909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2000.tb03697.x     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. For more on 'Alā' al-dawla al-Simnānī, see Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of 'Alā'ad-dawla as-Simnānī(Albany. SUNY Press, 1995)
2. Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 7 (March 1993), 23
3. In this paper I am intentionally avoiding commonly made distinctions between hagiography and biography, in which hagiography is juxtaposed to a more historiographical and objective narration of an individual's life. For my purposes hagiography is the writing of the life of a person who is judged by the biographer and the intended audience to be saintly or holy. There is a substantial literature on questions of historicity and biography. With regards to the issue as it pertains to my use in this article, I would like to refer the reader to Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints, tr. Donald Attwater (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998)
4. The most comprehensive study of Hamadānī in a western language remains J. K. Teufel, Eine Lebenbeschreibung des Scheichs Alī-i Hamadānī(g. 1385): Die Xulāsat ul-manāqib des Maulānā Nūr ud-Dīn Ca'far-i Badaxsī (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1962)
5. this monograph provides a critical account of his life based on the earliest biographies, although the primary sources, the Khulāsat al-manāqib of Ja'far Badakhshī, has since been published in a critical edition by Sayyida Ashraf Zafar (Islamabad: Markaz-i tahqīqāt-i fārsī, 1995). The most comprehensive source on his life and works is A. Riyāz, Ahwāl-u āsār-u ash'ār-i Mīr Sayyid 'Ali-yi Hamadānī (Islamabad: Markaz-i tahqīqāt-i fārsī-yi Īrān wa Pākistān, 1985)
6. Other important sources for his life include G. Böwering, "'Alī Hamadānī," Encyclopaedia Iranica (1985), 1: 862b-864a
7. A.H.S. Hamadānī, The Life and Works of Sayyid Ali Hamadānī (A.D. 1314-1385) (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1984)
8. Persian translation by M. Riyaz Khān, Shāh-i Hamadān, Mīr Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī (Islamabad: Markaz-i tahqīqāt-i fārsī, 1995)
9. A.A. Hekmat, "Les voyages d'un mystique persan de Hamadān au Kashmir." Journal Asiatique 240 (1952): 53-66
10. Ali Asghar Hikmat, "Az Hamadān tā Kashmīr," Yaghmā 4 (1951-52), 337-343
11. Of lesser importance are M.R. Khan, "Khadamāt-i Amīr-i kabīr Mīr Sayyid 'Alī-yi Hamadānī dar shabh-i qāra-yi Pākistān wa Hind (qarn-i hashtum)" (1968), 95-99
12. and M.R. Akhundzāda, Āsār-i shāh-i Hamadān (Khaplu, Baltistan: Barāt Library, 1994). His role in the development of futuwwa is addressed in M.R. Khan, "Futuwwatnāma az Mīr Sayyid 'Alī-yi Hamadānī," Ma'ārif-i islāmī 10-11 (1970), 32-39
13. M. Molé, "Kubrawiyat II: Ali b. Şihābeddin-i Hamadānī'nin Risāla-i futuwatiyya'si Şarkiyat Mecmuast 4 (1961), 33-72
14. M. Sarraf, Traites de compagnons-chevaliers.- Recueil de sept "Fotowwat-Nāmeh " (Teheran: L'Institut franco-iranien de recherche, 1973)
15. F. Taeschner, Zünfte und Bruderschaften im Islam: Texte zur Geschichte der Futuwwa (Zurich: Artemis, 1979)
16. For a list of his published works, see G. Böwering's article in Encyclopaedia Iranica and the Persian monograph on Hamadānī by M. Riyaz. Works that have appeared in published form since that time include N. M. Hirawi, "Chahār nazar pīrāmūn-i chahār āsar-i mansūb bi Sayyid 'Alī-yi Hamadānī," Dānish (Islamabad) 11 (1987), 90-116
17. Sayyida Ashraf Zafar, editor and Urdu translator, Risāla-yi munājāt (Karachi: Nadwa-yi islāmīyya-yi nūrbakhshīyya, 1990)
18. Muhammad Khajui, editor and Persian translator, Asrār al-nuqta yā tawhīd-i mukāshifān (Tehran: Intishārāt-i mawlā, 1997)
19. Haydar Badakhshi, Manqabat al-jawāhir, MS. 2794, India Office Collection, British Library, London, folios 346b-442b
20. D. DeWeese, "Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī and Kubrawī Hagiographical Traditions," in The Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism, ed. L. Lewisohn (London: Khaniqahi Nimatullahi Publications, 1992), 121-58
21. Khulāsatal-manāqib, 11-23
22. Khulāsat al-manāqib, 50
23. Muhammad Riyaz Qadiri, translator, Mahāsin al-sulūk, Urdu trans. of Zakhīrat al-mulūk (Lahore: Qādiriyya Books, 1986), 21
24. I am not entirely clear what the author means by a khirqa in this context. It is most likely that it implies a general term referring to ascetic dress (in contrast to worldly clothing) and not a formal Sufi robe. For more on the importance of robes in medieval Sufism, see my essay "The Sufi Robe (khirqa) as a Vehicle of Spiritual Authority," in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Steward Gordon (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), 275-89
25. Khulāsat al-manāqib, 262ff
26. For the most authoritative treatment of Muhammad Nūrbakhsh and the Nūrbakhshiyya, see Shahzad Bashir, Between Mysticism and Messianism: The Life and Thought of Muhammad Nūrbakš, Ph.D. Dissertation (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1997)
27. Bashir, 89-90
28. There is much disagreement in the sources over who was behind Nūrbakhsh's claims to be the Mahdī and therefore responsible for the death of Khuttalānī and the disaster that befell Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī's khānqāh. Nūr Allāh Shushtarī placed the entire blame on Khuttalānī, stating that he had forced a reluctant Nūrbakhsh to gather a group of disciples and publicly call the people to overthrow the Tīmūrids (Majālis al-mu'minīn, ed. Hajji Sayyid Ahmad [Tehran: Kitābfurū shī-yi Islāmiyya, 1975], 2:143ff)
29. However, Shushtarī has a strong tendency to take a very kindly eye toward anyone he considers a Shi'i and to interpret events in a normatively Twelver Shi'i way. Ibn al-Karbalā'i's interpretation of the end of Khuttalānī must be seen as more accurate; he explains how Khuttalānī's family, who were among the notables of Khuttalan and Badakhshan, had originally opposed Tīmūrid rule, and that Shāhrukh and his advisors had used this very minor religious incident as a pretext to exact revenge on the Khuttalānī family (Rawzāt al-jinān wa jannāt al-janān, ed. Ja'far Sultān al-Qurra'i [Tehran: Bungāh-i tarjuma wa nashr-i kitāb, 1970], 2:236-68)
30. For more information on the events surrounding Nūrbakhsh's public declaration as Mahdī and their ramifications, see Bashir, pp. 97ff
31. also Devin Deweese, "The Eclipse of the Kubraviyah in Central Asia," Iranian Studies 21:1-2 (1988), 59-83
32. For more information on the Zahabiyya and its fate in Iran, see Richard Gramlich, Die schiitischen Derwischorden Persiens, vols. 1 and 2 (Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1965, 1976)
33. Marijan Molé has discussed the Shi'i connections of the Kubrawiyya in "Les Kubrawiya entre sunnisme et shiisme aux huitième et neuvième siècles de l'Hégire," Revue des études islamiques 29 (1961), 61-142
34. Ibn al-Karbalā'ī, 2:236-38; 263
35. Shushtarī, 2:144
36. Bashir, 100; 188ff
37. Mīrzā Haydar Dughlat, Tarikh-i Rashidi: A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, trans. E. Denisson Ross (New York: Praeger, 1970), 434-36
38. Mohibbul Hassan, Kashmīr under the Sultāns, Abdul Halim Memorial Volume (Calcutta: Iran Society, 1959), 124-44
39. Andreas Rieck, "The Nūrbakhshīs of Baltistan: Crisis and Revival of a Five Centuries Old Community," Die Welt des Islams 55:2 (1995), 160
40. For a detailed discussion of problems associated with studying the history of Islam in Baltistan, see Wolfgang Holzwarth, "Islam in Baltistan: Problems of Research on the Formative Period," in The Past in the Present: Horizons of Remembering in the Pakistan Himalaya, ed. Irmtraud Stellrecht, Culture Area Karakorum Scientific Studies, 2 (Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 1997), 1-40
41. Holzwarth argues for a much greater impact of Kashmiri historians on the modern Nūrbakhshī sense of the past than other writers have granted. For a more traditional view, see Banat Gul Afridi, Baltistan in History(Peshawar: Emjay Books, 1988)
42. A.H. Dani, History of Northern Areas of Pakistan (Islamabad: National Institute of Historical and Cultural Research, 1989), 175-78
43. Rieck, 162-63
44. For more information on these important figures, see Rieck, 163-66
45. Rieck has done extensive research on the pedigrees of this family. According to him, all Nūrbakhshī Sayyids in the Shigar valley trace their descent to Mīr Yahyā, and all those in other parts of Baltistan to Mīr Mukhtār. His Dātā contradicts in important ways the history provided in Hashmatullah Khan Lakhnawi, Tārīkh-i Jammū (Mirpur: Vīrīnāg Publishers, 1991; 1st published Lucknow: 1939), 545-48
46. Dani, 122-24
47. Personal interview with Ghulām Hasan (Hasanu) Nūrbakhshi, Khaplu, July 1998
48. Muhammad Hasan Hasrat, Tārīkh-i adabīyāt-i Baltistān (Rawalpindi: T.S. Printers, 1992), 183-84
49. Rieck, 169
50. Rieck, 170
51. The Ahl-i hadīth, like the Brelwis and Deobandis, is a reformist Islamic movement that came out of the Indian colonial experience. The Ahl-i hadíth reject the authority of traditional Sunni legal schools, and attempt to be strict scripturalists, basing their ideas and practices directly on the Qur'ān and hadīth and having a very strong aversion to all things they regard as bid'a(religious innovation). There is, as yet, no critical study of this movement. For further information on the Ahl-i hadīth, religious education and sectarian divisions in Pakistan, see Jamal Malik, Colonialization of Islam: Dissolution of Traditional Institutions in Pakistan(New Delhi: Manohar, 1996)
52. Andreas Rieck, "Sectarianism as a political problem in Pakistan: The case of the Northern Areas," Orient 36:3 (1995), 429-49
53. and A. Ahmed, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967)
54. Rieck, 171
55. For a brief biography of Sayyid 'Awn 'Alī Shāh, see Nawā-yi sūfiyya no. 4 (March 1992), 114-15
56. Personal interviews with Dr. Ghazi Naeem, Islamabad, June 1998; Ghulām Hasan (Hasanu) Nūrbakhshī and Muhammad Raza Akhundzada, Khaplu, July 1998
57. Personal interviews with the director and librarian of the Madrasa-yi Shāh-i Hamadān, Skardu, July 1998
58. Personal interview with Hashmatullah Khan, Superintendent of Police, Khaplu, July 1998
59. Rieck, 182-83. Hashmatullah Khan participated in the criminal investigation of Sayyid Manzūr Husayn Hamadānī. The Hamadānī incident is still fresh in the minds of the Nūrbakhshī intelligentsia, and may be a major motivation behind their attempts to develop a scholarly tradition as a counterweight to the charismatic nature of the community
60. For more on 'Irāqī in English, see Mohibbul Hassan, 283-88
61. and Bashir, 133ff
62. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 4
63. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 196-99; 311
64. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 308
65. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 499-500
66. The question of conversion to Islam and the interests and policies of Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī, his son, and other early Hamadānī-Kubrawīs in Kashmir brings up many interesting questions regarding the relationship between elite and popular culture and religion in both Islamic and Hindu contexts. For a thoughtful analysis of the development of Islam in Kashmir, see M. Ishāq Khan, Kashmir's Transition to Islam: The Role of the Muslim Rishis (New Delhi: Manohar, 1994)
67. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 208-11
68. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 497-99
69. Tuhfat al-ahbāb, 194
70. 'Abd al-Qayyūm Qurayshī, "Shāh-i Hamadān kī tehrīk awr kārhā-yi numāyān," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 4 (December 1994), 17
71. Sahibzada Hasan Shah, "Hazrat Amīr-i kabīr 'Alī-yi Sānī Mīr Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī kī tehrīk-i da'wat wa irshād," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 6 (February 1995), 10
72. Qurayshī, 20
73. Ghulām Sarwar Lāhūrī, Khazīnat al-asfiyā, Urdu translation by Iqbal Ahmad Faruqi (Lahore: Maktaba-yi nabawiyya, 1983), 273
74. Hishmatullah Khan Lakhnawi, 587. According to a modern account, he sent two representatives to Kashmir in 760/1359 (Qurayshī, 20). The motif of an inanimate object such as a rock or wall becoming animate through the power of a religious figure and transporting him or someone else from one place to another is encountered in many religions. For an interesting discussion of this topic, see Martin van Bruinessen, "Haji Bektash, Sultān Sahak, Shah Mina Sahib and Various Other Avatars of a Running Wall," Turcica, 21:3 (1991), 55-73
75. 'Abd al-Qadir Kubrawī Hazari, "Kashmīr awr Mir Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 7 (April 1995), 11-13
76. Badr ad-din Butt, "Hazrat Shāh-i Hamadān awr Kashmïr," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 26 (Jan, 1997), 24-25
77. Although there is little reason to believe that there was any truth to the story of Qutb al-dïn having been married to two sisters, a similar custom is reported in the Hindu Kush mountains to the west of Kashmir as recently as the mid-19th century. In the event of the death of a married man, his brother was expected to marry his widow and was considered disgraceful if he did not. Since it was also common for two brothers from one family to be married to two sisters from another, it was not rare for a man to be married to two sisters at the same time, despite such a practice being forbidden by Islamic law ( John Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh[Karachi: Indus Publications, rpt. 1977], 76)
78. I have found absolutely no evidence to suggest Hamadānī ever went to Baltistan. Baltistan is not at all on the way between Kashmir and Badakhshan and would, in fact, involve a long and arduous detour that would, no doubt, have been mentioned in either the Khulāsat al-manāqib or the Manqabat al-jawāhir. The only possibility of his ever visiting this region would be if there is any truth to the claim that he visited Turkestan, since one route between Kashmir and Yarkand would pass through the Shigar valley. It has been alleged that Hamadānī did, in fact, travel from Kashmir to Yarkand through the Siachen region of Baltistan and that the main route from Kashmir to Turkestan passed this way until the 17th century when it was abandoned for political and climatic reasons (Sayyid Muhammad Shamim Shahbaz, "Amīr-i Kabīr Sayyid 'Alī Hamadānī kā dawra-yi Baltistan awr islāmī khidmāt," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 20 (June 1996), 7)
79. It has also been argued that Hamadānī came to Baltistan not from Kashmir but from Turkestan in the north, which would again explain his presence in Shigar (Holzwarth, 11)
80. Sayyid Nawaz Husayn Shigari, "Wādī-yi Shigar meyn Islām kī tablīgh," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 30 (June 1997), 17-18
81. Qurayshī, 20-21
82. Hishmat Allah Khan Lakhnawi, 588-89
83. Husayn Shigari, 18
84. M. Ishāq Khan, 65-67
85. Hishmatullah Khan Lakhnawi, 588
86. Ghulām Sarwar Lāhūrī, 272
87. Ghulām Ali Alana, "Hazrat Shāh-i Hamadān awr āthwīn sadī hijrī kā ayshiyāī tamaddunī inqilāb," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 5 (January 1995), 20-21
88. Sayyid Muhammad Shamim Shahbaz, 7
89. Sahibzada Hasan Shah, 11
90. Sayyid Hasan Marandi, "Shāh-i Hamadān Mīr Sayyid 'Alī Hamadīnī," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 25 (Dec. 1996), 15
91. Hakim Muhammad Sa'id, "Shāh-i Hamadān awr un kī tamaddun āfrīnī," Nawā-yi sūfiyya, no. 3 (Nov. 1994), 22
92. introduction to the Urdu translation of the Khulāsat al-manāqib by Ghulām Husayn Nurani, Secretary General of the Nadwa-yi Islāmiyya-yi Nūrbakhshiyya (Zubdat al-manāqib, trans. Sayyida Ashraf Zafar [Karachi: Nadwa-yi Islāmiyya-yi Nūrbakhshiyya, 1993], 6)
93. Bruce Lawrence, "The Chishtīya of Sultanate India: A Case Study of Biographical Complexities in South Asian Islam," Charisma and Sacred Biography, Journal of the American Academy of Religion Thematic Studies, 48:3-4, ed. Michael A. Williams (1982), 47-67