the history of sufi traditions A wide range of texts were produced in and around sufi khanqahs. These included: .Treatises or manuals dealing with sufi thought and practices – The Kashf-ul-Mahjub of Ali bin Usman Hujwiri (died c. ) is an example of this genre. It enables historians to see how traditions outside the subcontinent influenced sufi thought in India.
. Malfuzat (literally, “uttered”; conversations of sufi saints) – An early text on malfuzat is the Fawa’id-al-Fu’ad , a collection of conversations of Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya, compiled by Amir Hasan Sijzi Dehlavi, a noted Persian poet. Source contains an excerpt from this text. Malfuzats were compiled by different sufi silsilas with the permission of the shaikhs ; these had obvious didactic purposes.
Several examples have been found from different parts of the subcontinent, including the Deccan. They were compiled over several centuries. . Maktubat (literally, “written” collections of letters); letters written by sufi masters, addressed to their disciples and associates – While these tell us about the shaikh’s experience of religious truth that he wanted to share with others, they also reflect the life conditions of the recipients and are responses to their aspirations and difficulties, both spiritual and mundane.
The letters, known as Maktubat-i Imam Rabbani , of the noted seventeenth-century Naqshbandi Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. ), whose ideology is often contrasted with the liberal and non-sectarian views of Akbar, are amongst those most frequently discussed by scholars. . Tazkiras (literally, “to mention and memorialise”; biographical accounts of saints) – The fourteenth-century Siyar-ul-Auliya of Mir Khwurd Kirmani was the first sufi tazkira written in India.
It dealt principally with the Chishti saints. The most famous tazkira is the Akhbar-ul-Akhyar of Abdul Haqq Muhaddis Dehlavi (d. ). The authors of the tazkiras often sought to establish the precedence of their own orders and glorify their spiritual genealogies.
Many details are often implausible, full of elements of the fantastic. Still they are of great value for historians and help them to understand more fully the nature of the tradition. Remember that each of the traditions we have been considering in this chapter generated a wide range of textual and oral modes of communication, some of which have been preserved, many of which have been modified in the process of transmission, and others are probably lost forever.