Shaikh Ahmad Sarhindi

June 04, 2021

Shaikh Ahmad Sarhindi

Introduction:

Shaikh Ahmad Sarhindi was born on 1564 in Sarhindi, a small town located two hundred kilometers northwest of Delhi. He was the son of Sheikh ‘Abd al-Ahad Makhdum, who was a devout Muslim always anxious to derive spiritual enlightenment from saints. Sheikh ‘Abd al-Ahad Makhdum met Sheikh Allah Dad at Ruhtas and Sayyid ‘Ali Qawam at Juanput. He learned a great deal from both and then returned to Sirhind and lived there until his death in 1007/1598.

His name was Ahmad and his surname was Badr al-Din. From his father’s side, he descended from the Caliph ‘Hazrat Umar (رضي الله عنه). He was also known as Mujadid Alif Saani.

Early Life:

In his early childhood he was sent to a school where in a short time he learned the Holy Qur’an by heart. Then for a long time he was taught by his father. Later he went to Sialkot and there covered some more courses under the guidance of Kamal Kashmiri. He also studied some works on Hadith from Ya‘qub Kashmiri, a great scholar of the time. By the young age of 17 he had mastered a great deal of Islamic sciences and had begun tea He visited Agra where he met some great men of learning including Abu al-Faidi. After some time he accompanied his father to Sirhind. On his way home, he was married to the daughter of a noble named Sheikh Sultan of Thanesar. On his return to Sirhind he stayed with his father and through his help established spiritual relationship with the Qadriyyah and Chishtiyyah schools of mysticism. Through the training received from his father, he learned the fundamentals of Sufism. In his studies too he had been greatly influenced by his father. He could not go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in his father’s life-time, although he yearned to do so. He was anxious to serve his father during his life and could not leave him alone.

After his father’s death in 1007/1598 he started on this long cherished pilgrimage. On his arrival at Delhi, he heard of the reputation of Khawaja Baqi Billah as a saint from a friend, Maulana Hassan. He went to him promptly and was well received. The Khawaja inquired of him about his intended pilgrimage and then wished him to stay with him for a week or so. He was greatly impressed by the spiritual attainments of the Khawaja that he made up his mind to become his disciple. The Khawaja was very fastidious in taking anyone as his disciple but he immediately accepted the Mujadid as his follower and focused his entire attention upon him. The Mujadid heart became the seat of the praise of Allah and he made rapid progress in spiritual knowledge. Under the Khawaja’s guidance he was able to complete his Naqshbandi training in a few months. He was warmly congratulated and was invested with a gown as a symbol of the completion of his training. He went back to Sirhind and began to teach people.

Religious Struggle:

He was Indian mystic and theologian who was largely responsible for the reassertion and revival in India of orthodox Sunnite Islam as a reaction against the syncretistic religious tendencies prevalent during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

He reached maturity when Akbar, the renowned Mughal emperor, attempted to unify his empire by forming a new syncretistic faith (Dīn-e-Ilāhī), which sought to combine the various mystical forms of belief and religious practices of the many communities making up his empire.

Shaykh Aḥmad joined the mystical order Naqshbandīyah, the most important of the Indian Sufi orders, in 1593–94. He spent his life preaching against the inclination of Akbar and his successor, Jahāngīr (ruled 1605–27), toward pantheism and Shīʿite Islam (one of that religion’s two major branches). Of his several written works, the most famous is Maktūbāt (“Letters”), a compilation of his letters written in Persian to his friends in India and the region north of the Amu Darya (river). Through these letters Shaykh Aḥmad’s major contribution to Islamic thought can be traced. In refuting the Naqshbandīyah order’s extreme monistic position of waḥdat al-wujūd (the concept of divine existential unity of God and the world, and hence man), he instead advanced the notion of waḥdat ash-shuhūd (the concept of unity of vision). According to this doctrine, any experience of unity between God and the world he has created is purely subjective and occurs only in the mind of the believer; it has no objective counterpart in the real world. The former position, Shaykh Aḥmad felt, led to pantheism, which was contrary to the tenets of Sunnite Islam.

Shaykh Aḥmad’s concept of waḥdat ash-shuhūd helped revitalize the Naqshbandīyah order, which retained its influence among Muslims in India and Central Asia for several centuries thereafter. A measure of his importance in the development of Islamic orthodoxy in India is the title that was bestowed posthumously on him, Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thānī (“Renovator of the Second Millennium”), a reference to the fact that he lived at the beginning of the second millennium of the Muslim calendar. His teachings were not always popular in official circles. In 1619, by the orders of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, who was offended by his aggressive opposition to Shīʿite views, Shaykh Aḥmad was temporarily imprisoned in the fortress at Gwalior. His burial place at Sirhind is still a site of pilgrimage.

Death:

An important period of his life is that between 1028/1618 and 1032/1622. One year of this period was spent in the prison of Gwalior and the other three with the Emperor Jahangir and his army. His increasing popularity aroused the jealousy of his rivals who poisoned the ears of the Emperor and reported him to be dangerous both to the Emperor and the State. The Emperor had faith only in the ascetics and hermits. He could not tolerate a widely popular Sufi in his land. Perhaps Asaf Jah and some other nobles had a hand in this intrigue against the Mujaddid. The matter was worsened still by his refusal to bow before the Emperor on the ground that it was against the tenets of Islam, with the result that he was imprisoned at Gwalior. He was released a year later, but he had to stay for a further period of three years with the army as a detenu. Two years before his death he was allowed to go to his home at Sirhind. There he died on the morning of the 28th Safar 1034/10th December 1624.