Day: May 18, 2019

Once Ayaz, the favourite slave of Mahmood, became ill due to the evil eye of courtiers who always envied Sultan Mahmood’s favours upon him.

Ayaz could not come to the court because of illness as he was bedridden.

When the news of his illness reached Sultan Mahmood, he called for his most loyal Royal Messenger to take the fastest horse and rush to Ayaz.

“Although I am far away from you but in reality my soul is next to you I have not forgotten about you and your suffering is my own suffering”, Sultan wrote in message.

Sultan ordered the Messenger not stop anywhere and avoid any delays.

The Messenger rode over the fastest possible horse without any breaks but once he reached Ayaz, he was shocked to see that the emperor Mahmood was already there at his bedside.

The messenger shivered with fear since he thought the emperor will suspect that he disobeyed his order and took a rest during the journey.

“Do not worry” , replied Sultan seeing messenger’s facial expression. ” I know you did not take rest but how can anyone travel faster than one whose heart is captured by his beloved?”.

The relational nexus between Muslim saint and Muslim ruler in medieval and early modern times was almost always a fraught one. Both saint and ruler laid claim to divinely invested authority, claims that could coexist, cooperate, and clash. A given saint might support a ruler, undermine him, or simply ignore him, while rulers moved between strategies of co-opting saints, seeking them out for their baraka and the social power that being connected to a saint might bring, endowing zawiyas, khaniqahs, and the like, even as some saintly shaykhs made a prominent point of rejecting both contact with and reception of wealth from rulers. Occasionally a Muslim claimant to sainthood ran seriously afoul of a ruler, resulting in exile, imprisonment, or even martyrdom.

I encountered the story- from the early thirteenth century Khawarezm domains- I’ve translated and presented below first in an Ottoman context, in the Ta’rîh (History) of Ibrâhîm Peçevî (d. c. 1650), an Ottoman official and author, who described the martyrdom of the Kurdish Şeyh Mahmûd of Diyarbakır, executed by Sultan Murad IV, probably because the sultan feared the saint, who had a vast following across the Kurdish lands, posed a political threat. Peçevî, who had been posted in Diyarbakır as a defterdâr, had been an intimate of the saint and was deeply sorrowed to learn of his martyrdom. Upon learning that Şeyh Mahmûd had died, he was reminded, he writes, of the story I’ve translated here. It comes from the massive Persian hagiographic compilation, Nafaḥāt al-uns, by the poet, sufi, and author Nūr al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 1492). There are indeed striking parallels, as well as differences: Majd al-Dīn, while clearly of saintly status, is seen here oversteping his limits in his relationship with the powerful and axial saint Najm al-Dīn al-Kubrā (d. 1221) in relating his vision, a vision that implies exalted spiritual status. The remainder of the story is largely self-explanatory, though I’ve included some notes for clarification here and there. Given both the odd details, the hints of court intrigue, and the spectacular ending- the Mongols totally devastated the Khawarezm lands- it would be a popular item in Jāmī’s hagiography. Peçevî reproduced, in Ottoman Turkish form, a condensed version of the story (and thereby implicitly criticized the by-then deceased Murad IV and warned future sultans) in his chronicle, while it was circulated in Ottoman Turkish in other contexts as well. The lessons are clear enough: rulers ought to observe proper care and respect around the saints, as the consequences of not doing so can be truly enormous!

One day Shaykh Majd al-Dīn [Baghdādī] was sitting with a group of dervishes when a state of spiritual intoxication came over him. He said: ‘I was a duck’s egg upon the shore of the sea, and Shaykh Najm al-Dīn [Kubrā] was a bird with his wings of spiritual instruction spread out above my head until I came forth from the egg and I was like the young of the duck, then went into the sea, while the shaykh remained on the shore.’

Shaykh Najm al-Dīn knew [what Majd al-Dīn said] by the light of divinely instilled power, and the words ‘He will go into the ocean!’ passed upon his tongue [1]. When Shaykh Majd al-Dīn heard that he was fearful, and he came before Shaykh Sa’d al-Dīn Ḥamawī and with great humility asked, ‘When the time is right with the shaykh, will you give him report of me such that I may enter his presence and request forgiveness?’

When the shaykh underwent a pleasant state in the midst of semā’, [2] Shaykh Sa’d al-Dīn told him about Shaykh Majd al-Dīn, who then came, barefooted and with a basin filled with fire placed upon his head, and stood in the place where shoes are left. Shaykh [Najm al-Dīn] looked to him and said, ‘In accordance with the way of the dervishes you have desired forgiveness, your faith and your religion you will keep sound and whole, but your head will go away [ie you will die] and you will go into the sea. But we also will be in your head, and the heads of the commanders and the king of Khwarezm will be in your head and the world will become ruined.’ Shaykh Majd al-Dīn fell at the shaykh’s feet [to kiss them].

In only a little while the words of the shaykh were made manifest: Shaykh Majd al-Dīn preached in Khwarezm, and the mother of Sultan Muhammad, who was a woman of exceeding beauty, attended the preaching of Shaykh Majd al-Dīn, and would often go on pious visits to him. Slanderers sought occasion until one night the sultan was very drunk, and they claimed to him, ‘Your mother is going to end up entering the madhhab of Abū Ḥanīfa by marrying Shaykh Majd al-Dīn!’ The sultan became very angry and commanded that the shaykh be cast into the Tigris, so they cast him in.

The report came to Shaykh Najm al-Dīn, and he became very disturbed and said, ‘We are God’s and to God we return. They cast my son Majd al-Dīn into the water and he perished!’ He placed his head on his prayer rug and for a while was upon the prayer rug. Then he raised his head from the prayer rug and said, ‘From God Almighty I ask that the blood-price of my son incurred by Sultan Muhammad be answered!’ The sultan learned of this and became deeply repentant and came on foot to the presence of the shaykh, carrying a basin full of gold as well as a knife and winding-sheet [for burial] upon [the basin of gold]. Bareheaded he came and stood in the row of shoes and said, ‘If the blood-price is necessary, here is the gold, and if retribution, here is a knife!’

The shaykh answered, ‘That was written in the Book. His blood price is your entire kingdom, and your head too will go [you will die], along with most of your people, we too sharing in your fate.’ Sultan Muhammad returned, hopeless, and soon Ghengiz Khan came forth and did what he did.

Mawlana Abdulrahman bin Ahmed Jami and Mahdi Tawhidipur, Nafahat al-uns min hadarat al-quds (Tehran: Kitabfurushi-i Saadi, 1959).

[1] This utterance is somewhere between prophecy and threat- as indicated by Majd al-Dīn’s reaction.

[2] That is, the ritual of music and dance carried out by sufis, in various forms.

Shaykh Jawhar was in the beginning of his life the slave of someone, then became free, and took to buying and selling in the marketplace of Aden. He would attend the sessions of the [sufi] fuqarā’, [1] and had perfect belief in and loyalty towards them. He was illiterate. When the time of his shaykh’s death approached—the great shaykh Sa’d Ḥadād who is buried in Aden—the fuqarā’ said to him: ‘After you, who do you want to be shaykh?’ He replied: ‘The person who, on the third day after my passing, in the place where the fuqarā’ have gathered, a green bird comes and sits upon his head.’

When the third day came and the fuqarā’ had finished with Qur’an and dhikr they sat down in keeping with the shaykh’s words. Suddenly they saw a green bird had come down and had settled nearby, each of the important members of the fuqarā’hoping that the green bird would sit on his head. But after a while that bird flew up and alighted on the head of Jawhar! He had not at all imagined that this would happen, nor had any of the other fuqarā’! They all came before him and were set to bear him to the shaykh’s zawīya [2] and seat him in the place of the shaykh. But he said, ‘What qualification do I have for this work? I’m just a man of the marketplace and am illiterate! I don’t know the adāb and the ṭarīqa of the fuqarā’, [3] and I have obligations towards others to fulfill and relations to untangle!’

They replied, ‘This is the will of Heaven, you don’t have any way out of it! God will help you in whatever ways are necessary.’ So he said, ‘Give me a delay so that I can go to the marketplace and fulfill my obligations towards the Muslims there.’ So he went to the marketplace and met his obligations towards everyone, then went to the shaykh’s zawīya and adhered to the instruction of the fuqarā’, and he became like his name a gem (jawhar), possessing virtues and perfections whose enumeration would stretch long—glory to the Noble Beneficient One, that is grace of God which He bestows upon whom He wills, God possesses great grace! [4]

[1] Literally, ‘the poor ones,’ but by this period shorthand for sufi devotees (who may or may not have been literally poor).

[2] The structure devoted to a particular shaykh and his companions, for sufi ritual, teaching, and so forth. One of several words for a space of this sort.

[3] That is, the ‘mannered practices’ and ‘spiritual path’ of the sufi devotees. Both terms have so many resonances that I find it generally best not to translate them into English but to leave them in the original.

[4] The section in italics represents Jāmī’s switch from the Persian of the main narrative to Arabic.