Abstract
The efflorescence of Chishti Sufism in South Asia in the political flux of the thirteenth and fourteenth century and the transient relations with the Delhi sultans forms the core narrative of Tanvir Anjum’s book. She examines the ‘institutional’ role of the Chishti silsilah and the ‘individual’ roles of the Chishti Shaykhs concurrently in order to underline the creation, preservation and intercessions in the Chishti ‘space’. Anjum reports that the Chishti tariqa was largely homogenous and in delineating the institutional order of the Chishtis, her narrative is largely contoured by the tazkirat, Siyar al-Awliya. She closely follows the commemorative discourse of the tazkirat in order to trace the linear history of the silsilah, the first five Chishti Shaykhs, their khalifas and relationship with the Delhi sultans. Unlike recent historiographical interventions in the study of sufi–sultan relations, on conflicting claims to authority, competition within and among sufi orders, and a disaggregation of malfuzat and tazkirat narratives, Anjum’s history is devoid of any complexities in both formation of the Chishti order and its precepts.
Tanvir Anjum does not deliberate on the agencies that engendered the expansion of the Chishti order in the subcontinent as she unequivocally traces the origin of the silsilah and its praxis to the ideologies of the sufi masters in Herat. In doing so, Anjum follows fourteenth century hagiographies but ignores the usage of rhetoric in the tazkirats who deliberately used a linear historical narrative to epitomise a homogenous tariqa and charisma of the sufi Shaykhs. The pitfalls in her narrative are apparent in not just the juxtaposition of Persian literary material as either ‘statist’ court chronicles or ‘non-statist’ sufi texts, but in the labelling of the malfuzat as either authentic or inauthentic, a discrimination that is extended to all hagiographical texts that cite narratives from the ‘inauthentic’ malfuzat as well (p. 23). It is hard to comprehend the intent of the author through these categories because Anjum cites anecdotes from both ‘inauthentic’ and ‘authentic’ malfuzat, warning her readers simultaneously of the contradictions in reportage in the hagiographies and their inability to follow modern principles of historical criticism. While some of these arguments seem to be derived uncritically from earlier scholarship (in particular Mohammad Habib), others have their origin in a naive empiricism and the rest seem to be simply anachronistic. On the other hand, in trying to understand the process of institutionalisation of Chishti Sufism, the author could have focused more on the literary style and agenda of the medieval authors and parsed out their teleologies and textures of narration across time.
The central crux of Anjums’s analysis of sufi–sultan relations is the creation of a Chishti space in the politico-religious landscape of the Delhi Sultanate. She details this in tandem with the evolution of the Chishti order and contends that early thirteenth century was marked by mutual tolerance as the Chishtis carved out and preserved their space through minimal interference in Sultanate politics. Later, in the fourteenth century, this space was expanded by the Chishtis by shifting the attitude towards avoidance than defiance of political sovereigns. There is considerable back and forth—the Sultanate was coercive which led to a defence of Chishti praxis until eventually, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, the descendents of sufi Shaykhs and sajjida nishins capitulated and collaborated with the Sultanate to become its loyal allies. The author provides many details to plot shifts in the attitude of the sufis towards the Sultanate; religion and politics remain segregated where the former has a monolithic character that is an internally apolitical domain. As a result, there is no effort to consider the diffusion of power in the social realm. The profound historiographical interventions of scholars such as Simon Digby, Bruce Lawrence, Carl Ernst and Riazul Islam seem to have passed by this author together with the popular feminist maxim of the 1970s—is the social not political when sufis contest for tabarrukat and accept futuh from sultans?
In an effort to justify that sufi praxis hardly changed with time, Anjum ignores the multilayered understanding of sufi piety so cogently discoursed by its great teachers. She confines the notion of piety to a refusal to accept land grants, official positions and the companionship of sultans. To reach such a conclusion, there is a huge sanitising of sufi literature–anecdotes from the malfuzat and tazkirat that contradict the received models on Chishti piety are regarded as unreliable (pp. 122–23) and negotiations over praxis by the sajjada nishins as they sought to accommodate varied ideas within the silsilah are discredited (pp. 334–36). A conscientious deconstruction of sufi precept and practice which was conscious of changes in time (how does one contextualise Gesudaraz in the fourteenth century, since that is the time when he learnt his Sufism, and he has so many elements in his practice that mark continuity and difference from his preceptors?) and space (where, in such a narrative, can one plot Hamid al-Din Nagauri and his Surur us Sudur?) can help in delineating the complex multidimensional power politics that gripped Chishti praxis and silsilah as alternate claimants to spiritual power.