Hazrat Khwaja Moinudeen Hassan Chishti Ajmeri (RahmatullahiAlaihi)
WITH EVERY BREATH, MY RESTLESSNESS INCREASES;
WHY DOES THE BUD OF MY HEART NOT BLOSSOM?
GRANT YOU MY WISHES, FOR THE SAKE OF ALI (RADIALLAHU ANHU).
SALUTATIONS TO YOU, O KHWAJA, THE SAINT OF HIND!
MAY THIS DEVOTEE'S ASPIRATIONS BE FULFILLED.
The small town of Ajmer, 400 kilometres south and west ofDelhi, is unremarkable to the eye at first glance. However, on closerinspection, one beholds the reason that it stands out; pilgrims. In thousandsupon thousands they come, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, of all nationalities;raising their voices in celebration and prayer, in praise and remembrance ofone of the greatest saints ever produced in the long and illustrious history ofIslam. The deservedly titled Sultan of India, the Qutb or spiritual axis of theeastern Islamic world; he is the fountain from whose spiritual light havesprung all the beautiful, mighty saints of the Chishtiyya silsila: HazratKhwaja Moinudeen Hassan Chishti Gharibun-Nawaaz Ajmeri (rahmtullahi alaihi).
The chieftain and founder of the Chishtiyya silsila, one ofthe four great orders that radiate throughout the world, Khwaja Gharibun-Nawaaz (radiallahuanhu) is one of the most respected and universally recognised figures in Sufismand Islam. He stands tall as a great spiritual leader; a reformer and purifierof hearts at the most turbulent of times. Most of the saints before his timehad been concentrated around the lands of the Middle East, but he was apioneer, a missionary who was responsible for spreading the Sufi and Islamicsphere of influence to the remotest regions of polytheistic India. His piouscharacter was a true picture of Islam; his practice exactly in accordance withthe dictates of the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah, and his teachings beautiful lessonsin godliness, truthfulness, and equality which enlightened the hearts ofmultitudes. Authentic estimates place the number of people he guided to thepath of Islam at nine million. It is a historical fact that his Chishtiyyasilsila wielded a direct and crucial influence on the course of Indian history,the development of the embryonic Bhakti Consciousness Movement of Hinduism, andmodern (pantheistic) Buddhism.
Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu) was born inthe year 536 AH in Sijistan, the son of Khwaja Ghyasuddin Chishti, a piousand influential man of what is now Iran. He was a direct descendant throughboth his parents of Hazrat Ali (radiallahu anhu). It was a time ofchaos and great upheavals in both India and the Muslim Empire as a whole. Inthe year of his birth, Sultan Sanjari was finally defeated before theimplacable advance of the Mughals, spelling the beginning of the end of theSultanate; and in Khurasan, where he was brought up, religious sects andbarbarism had lain waste a once civilised country. He was orphaned at the tenderage of fourteen, and was thus raised in the same condition as Rasulallah (sallalahualaihi wasallam).
But social evils, moral degradations and personal tragedystirred something deep within the young man, and he began to turn towards thespiritual life. Once when watering his father's garden, he came across adervish, Hazrat Ibrahim Qanduzi (radiallahu anhu). He was deeplyaffected by the saint's holy manner, and Hazrat Ibrahim (radiallahuanhu) for his part transformed Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu)'sinner being. His eyes became opened to the ultimate realities of the spiritualworld. Renouncing all material things, he sold his father's garden, all hispossessions and distributed the money among the poor.
Still at a young age, he arrived at the great centres oflearning in Samarkand and Bokhara, where he swiftly became a hafiz anddistinguished alim, fully conversant in all aspects of Islamic thought.Unsatisfied with this, he began a strict regime of prayers, meditations,fasting and self-renunciation which continued for years and grew more intenseand vigorous until Allah granted him the exalted rank of sainthood. He used tofast for seven days and nights, breaking fast on the eighth with a small crustof bread soaked in water. At this point, he felt the need for a shaykh, orspiritual guide, feeling the truth of the Qur'anic injunction,
O ye who believe! Be mindful of your duty towards Allah, and seek a means ofapproach unto Him, and strive in his way in order that ye may succeed. (5:35)
He himself used to state, "success is not possiblewithout a guide." He travelled extensively throughout the near East,finally finding a spiritual guide in Hazrat Khwaja Uthman Haruni (radiallahuanhu). In twenty years he spent under his murshid's guidance, he attainedperfection in tasawwuf and was awarded the khilafat-e-azam byKhwajaUthman (radiallahu anhu). He offered many pilgrimages both with hismurshid and alone. It was during one of these, while in Madinah Sharif, that hewas directed spiritually by Rasulallah (sallalahu alaihi wasallam) to go toIndia and spread Islam there. He left immediately with 40 of his disciples, onthe long and arduous journey.
Along the way, he stopped in several places includingBaghdad, Isfahan and Balkh. In Baghdad Sharif, he was the guest of ShaykhAbdul Qadir Jilani (radiallahu anhu), the greatest of saints and founderof the Qadriyya silsila. Hazrat Ghaus-ul Azam (radiallahuanhu) organised a qawwali in his own house for the visitors, and hehimself stood outside that night, with eyes closed and his staff tightly heldagainst the ground. When asked the reason for his actions, he replied, "Ineeded to stop the ground shaking, such was the power of Khawja's wajd."
In Sabzwar, he came across a ruler of such corruption thathe would not even hesitate to denigrate the holy sahaabi of the HolyProphet (sallalahu alaihi wasallam). Yet one glance from the great saintsufficed to render the man unconscious. When he awoke, his personality hadchanged completely; he gave up his kingdom, renounced all his possessions andbecame a mureed of Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu).
Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu) and his discipleswere in a cave in the mountains of the Hindu Kush when one of the most famousevents in sufi history occurred. Hundreds of miles away, in Baghdad Sharif,Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani (radiallahu anhu) pronounced his chieftainship of all auliya-allah bysaying, "My foot is on the neck of all walis." Spiritually hearingthe great saint's statement, Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu)immediately threw himself down and stretched his neck against the floor,signifying his submission to that truth.
It was because of this type of humble obedience that Allahgranted him the title, "Sultan-e-Hind", for he is the leader andspiritual head to all the hundreds of walis that have blessed India inafter-times. So it was that Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu) arrivedin India at a time of tremendous upheaval and moral decay. The Ghaznavi dynastywas in its death throes, and the Rajput kings were gaining power. Tyrannicalrulers were making life unbearable for common people, especially the muslimswhose numbers were diminishing day by day.
Yet India is not named for no reason, "the land ofsaints and sufis"; its people had inherited a wealth of spirituality thatyearned for expression. It was into such an arena that Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti(radiallahu anhu) stepped, a torch to India's tinder. First he went to Lahore,a centre of learning where resided a great number of Muslim theologians,philosophers and Sufis. Yet he soon left this place, for his divinely guidedmission was not to men such as these, but rather to those who were deprived ofthe light of Islam.
Thus he arrived in Delhi, which was to become the seat ofhis most famous successors. At the time, the city was a place of much fear andmutual hatred between Hindus and Muslims, but Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahuanhu) began delivering his sermons in a soft tongue, dipped in honey. As aresult of this kindness and forbearance, both Hindus and Muslims were turnedtowards the path of truth. The great wali was revered and loved by those ofboth religions, a trend which, was to be the hallmark of Sufism in India.
Soon, however, he left Delhi too, heading instead for theremote city of Ajmer, deep within the kingdom of the most powerful Rajput princein Northern India, Raj Prithviraj.
This city was completely alien to Islam; no muslims at alllived within its bounds. It was in this hostile environment that KhwajaMoinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu) and his forty disciples settled and beganthe bulk of his teaching. Very soon, however, he changed the entire civicatmosphere, gathering people of all races, castes and stations to the shiningtruth of Islam. His high morals and frugal lifestyle deeply impressed theHindus and all the while, the beautiful messages of the Qur'an and Sunnahentered deep into their hearts. Soon they started to convert, in multitudesupon multitudes, and the raja became alarmed as even his courtiers andhigh-ranking servants took up Islam.
It is interesting here to note that the raja's mother hadpredicted the arrival of Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu), and hadwarned her son not to interfere with him lest he suffer total destruction.Whether Raj Prithviraj forgot this prophecy or ignored it is unknown, but hebegan to harass the shaykh and trouble his followers. But Khwaja MoinudeenChishti (radiallahu anhu), holding firm to the Islamic doctrine that,"Allah is with those who patiently persevere," steadfastly carried onhis peaceful mission. One day, however, he said, "The raja will becaptured alive, and his kingdom snatched away." This prophecy was proventrue not months later. The raja, was defeated by Sultan Shahabuddin, wascaptured alive and brought into the presence of the sultan, who ordered him executed.The power of the Rajputs was thus broken for more than three hundred years.
Khwaja Moinudeen Chishti (radiallahu anhu) carried on hiswork in Ajmer for 45 years, and millions entered Islam through his spirituallight and endeavours. Besides this great service, he also established permanentsufi centres which were run by such mighty disciples as Khwaja QutbudeenKhaki, Hazrat Nizamudeen Auliya, Hazrat Baba Farid Ganj Shakar and KhwajaNasiruddeen Chiragh Delhawi (rahmatullahi ta'aala ajmaeen).
On the 29th Jamaad-us-Saani, before entering his bare cellfor his usual meditations, he advised his attendants that he should not bedisturbed until his khalifa-e-azam, Khwaja Qutbuddeen Khaki (radiallahuanhu), arrived from Delhi. On the 6th Rajab, 633 AH, his khalifa arrived and,receiving no answer to his polite knocking, the mureeds broke down the door.There they found that their beloved murshid had already left the world, at theripe old age of ninety-six. To the wonder and amazement of all, upon hisforehead was inscribed in letters of light: He was a lover of Allah, and hedied in the love of Allah.
Such was the passing of one of the greatest saints inIslamic history. Undoubtedly, if not for him and his enormous sacrifices, manyof those who read this would not have been born into the mercy of thisbeautiful religion. One can only imagine the hardship he endured in his earlyyears in Ajmer, in the kingdom of a hostile king, surrounded by a nation ofpolytheists, a people even whose native tongue - Sanskrit - was foreign to him.
How similar was his situation, and his conduct underadversity, to the Holy Prophet (saw) himself! How he managed to convert so manyHindus to Islam, working from the heart of their own kingdom, at a time whenthe only words that the two religions could address each other with were hatredand war, is a miracle in itself. He not only moulded the character of a people,but also led them to a more prosperous, nobler way of living, and cultivated inthem the qualities of humanity and truth. Through him and his immediatesuccessors, the entire culture and civilization of India underwent a profoundchange.
As alluded to before, apart from the millions of converts toIslam, the Bhakti Consciousness movement, modern Buddhism and Sikhism, allmonotheistic or pantheistic in outlook emerged from the ancient religions ofHinduism and Buddhism due in great part to the Chishtiyya silsila's efforts inthe path of Islam. As is stated in Sura al-Nasr, When Allah's succour andtriumph cometh, and thou seest mankind entering the religion of Allah introops, then hymn the praises of thy Lord, and seek. forgiveness of Him Lo! Heis ever ready to show mercy.
[http://www.israinternational.com/knowledge-nexus/170-the-life-of-hazrat-khawaja-moinuddin-chishti-ra.html]
Emperor Aurangazb Alamgir &Sultanul Hind.qs
When the Mughal ruler Aurangazb Alamgir came to power, he immediatelypaid a visit to pay homage to the Holy Saint Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin HassanChishty (ra) at Ajmer. It was his routine to say Assalamu Alaikum to theresting place of the Awliya. If a [mystical] reply to his salutation came fromthe concerned grave, he would believe that the real and exact grave was locatedthere. Otherwise he would order the shrine to be demolished.
When he approached the Holy Shrine of Sultanul Hind, Ata-e-Rasool,in his usual way he loudly addressed the grave - Assalato-Wassalamu Alaika YaHindul Wali Ata-e-Rasool Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti (ra). There was noreply. He again after a few moments repeated his salutation and again there wasno response from the grave of the Holy Saint. He said that if his salutationswere not answered one more time, he would demolish the shrine. After a pausethe reply came from the Mazar Sharif of Hazrat Khwaja Gharib Nawaz (ra), Hesaid "Walaikum Assalam Ya Alamgir Hujjati; Is a reply essential when One is busy in his Communion with Allah?".Peace is upon you Ya Alamgir. On this shocking reply Alamgir bowed down andbegged for mercy and forgiveness; Alamgir offered Fateha and felt his mistake.Being a true devotee of the Holy Saint he erected a Mosque just near the DargahSharif of Huzoor Khwaja Garib Nawaz (ra) which is now known as Alamgiri Mosque.
