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(p., Sanskrit mudrā ) seal, signet or signet-ring, the equivalent of Arabic k̲h̲ātam [ q.v. for the use of seals in the Arab and Iranian worlds]. Muhr (Turkish mühür , popularly möhür , also Arabicised to give barbarous derivatives like tamhīr “act of sealing” and mamhūr (synonym of mühürlü ) “sealed, hidden”) was used by the Persians and Turks alongside or instead of k̲h̲ātam to express ideas also taken directly from the Arabs, as in the phrase muhr-i Sulaymān or muhr-i D̲j̲am “Solomon’s seal” (also for the name of the plant) or muhr-i nubuwwat “seal of prophecy”, the mark on Muḥammad’s back. I…

, popular title of Sipāh Sālār Masʿūd G̲h̲āzī , one of the earliest and most celebrated of Indo-Muslim saints, who lies buried at Bahrāič, in Uttar Pradesh. According to Ḍiyā al-Dīn Baranī, he was a soldier in the army of Sultan Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna. Abu ’l Faḍl says that he was a kinsman ( k̲h̲wes̲h̲āwand ) of the Sultan. ʿAbd al-Ḳādir Badāʾūnī quotes a saint of Ḵh̲ayrabād who once remarked about the Sālār: “He was an Afg̲h̲ān who met his death by martyrdom”. No early record of his life exists. Later generations have introduced many mythical and romantic elements in his biography. The Mirʾāt-i Mas…

, an Indian dynasty established in the closing years of the 8th/14th century with D̲j̲awnpur, [ q.v.] as its capital. It had a life span of about one hundred years (796-901/1394-1495) during which six rulers—Malik Sarwar K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲ahān (796-802/1394-99), Malik Mubārak S̲h̲āh Ḳaranfal (802-4/1399-1401), S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Ibrāhīm S̲h̲āh (804-44/1401-40), Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh (844-62/1440-67), Muḥammad S̲h̲āh (862-3/1457-8) and Ḥusayn S̲h̲āh (863-901/1458-95)— exercised authority. The founder of the S̲h̲arḳī kingdom, Malik Sarwar [ q.v.], was a eunuch in the service of F…

, formerly capital of the Sindhia state of Gwāliyār, now a town in Madhya Prades̲h̲. “Tradition assigns the foundation of the city to one Sūrad̲j̲ Sen who was cured of leprosy by an ascetic named Gwālipa. The latter inhabited the hill on which the fort now stands, and this was called Gwāliyār after him”. The early history of Gwāliyār is, however, shrouded in myth and romance. The Hūna adventurers, Toramana and his son Mihirkula, who partially overthrew the Gupta power in the 6th century A.D., ar…

, commonly known as Bahāʾ al-Ḥaḳḳ, a saint of the Suhrawardī order, was born at Kot Karor (near Mulṭān) in 578/1182-83 according to Firis̲h̲ta. He was one of the most distinguished Ḵh̲alīfas of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī [ q.v.] and is the founder of the Suhrawardī order in India. After completing his study of the Ḳurʾān according to its seven methods of recitation at Kot Karor, he visited the great centres of Muslim learning in Ḵh̲urāsān, at Buk̲h̲ārā and Medina, and in Palestine—in order to complete his study of the traditional sciences. While in Medina he learnt ḥadīt̲h̲ …

, one of the oldest and most renowned towns of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.] in the Aḥmādabād district of Bombay. It was founded in 746 by the Čavadas of Gud̲j̲arāt. Originally known as Anhilwāra, the Arab geographers refer to it as Nahrwāla [see nahrawāl ]. Later, it became known as Pāt́an. According to the Mirʾāt-i Aḥmadī , the Hindus used the word Pātan for a big or capital town. The poet Farruk̲h̲ī [ q.v.] says that ¶ on its possession “Bhīm prided himself over the princes of India” (Nāẓim, The life and times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna , Cambridge 1931, 217). Sultan Maḥmūd …

, Odra-deśa , conventionally Orissa, the land of the Oriyas, is a province of the Indian Union (between lat. 17° 49′ N., and 22° 34′ N., and between long. 81° 29′ E. and 87° 29′ E.). Spread over an area of 155,707 km2/60,178 sq. miles, it has a population of 31,659,736, of which 5,777,775 are Muslims. Its capital is Bhubaneswar to the south of Cuttack. Orissa covers the delta region of the Mahānadī and other rivers and is bounded by the Bay of Bengal on the east, West Bengal on the north-east, Madhya Pradesh on the west and Andhra Pradesh on the south. The st…

(a.), literally “utterances”, in Ṣūfī parlance denotes the conversations of a mystic teacher. Though some compilations of Ṣūfī utterances were made earlier in other lands, e.g. the Ḥālāt wa-suk̲h̲anān-i S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Abū Saʿīd (Rieu, i, 342b ii) and Asrār al-tawḥīd (ed. Aḥmad Bahmanyār, Tehran 1934) [see abū saʿīd b. abiʾl-k̲h̲ayr ], it was Ḥasan Sid̲j̲zī of Dilhī who gave it a definite literary form. In 707/1307 he decided to write a summary of what he heard from his spiritual mentor, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Niẓām al-Dīn Awliyāʾ [ q.v.], and completed it under the rubric, Fawāʾid al-fuʾād …

, Indo-Muslim poet, mystic and free-thinker of the 11th/17th century, who was executed by the Mug̲h̲al Emperor Awrangzīb [ q.v.] for going about naked and holding heterodox views. Originally he belonged to a Jewish family of Kās̲h̲ān but, later, he embraced Islam and received instruction in philosophy from Mullā Ṣadrā S̲h̲īrāzī [ q.v.] and Mīrzā Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Findiriskī [ q.v. in Suppl.]. In 1042/1632 he came to Sind as a merchant. In That́t́a he fell in love with a Hindu youth and suffered such emotional disturbance that he gave up his vocation, went ab…

, Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan , one of the most outstanding figures in the annals of Islamic mysticism and founder of the Čis̲h̲tiyya order [see the following article] in India, was born in or about 536/1141 in Sid̲j̲istān. He was in his teens when his father, Sayyid G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, died leaving as legacy a grinding mill and an orchard. The sack of Sid̲j̲istān at the hands of the G̲h̲uzz Turks turned his mind inwards and he developed strong mystic tendencies. He distribute…

(a.), pl. of ʿālim , active participle of ʿalima , "to know, to be aware of", denotes scholars of almost all disciplines ( lug̲h̲a , bayān , ḥisāb , etc. [ q.vv.]). However, the term refers more specifically to the scholars of the religious sciences ( faḳīh , mufassir , muftī , muḥaddit̲h̲ , mutakallim , ḳāriʾ etc. [ q.vv.]), considered here exclusively in the context of Sunnism, where they are regarded as the guardians, transmitters and interpreters of religious knowledge, of Islamic doctrine and law; the term also embraces those who fulfil religious f…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn b. ʿUmar al-Zāwulī al-Hindī, an eminent Indian scholar of the 9th/15th century, was born at Dawlatābād in the Deccan. He completed his studies in Dihlī at the feet of Ḳāḍī ʿAbd al-Muḳtadir and Mawlānā K̲h̲wād̲j̲gī, two eminent disciples of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Naṣīr al-Dīn Čirāg̲h̲-i Dihlī. When Tīmūr invaded India, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn left Dihlī and settled at D̲j̲awnpur where Sulṭān Ibrāhīm S̲h̲arḳī (804-844/1400-1440) received him with honour and appointed him as the ḳāḍī al-ḳuḍāt of his kingdom. Later on he conferred upon him the title of Malik al-ʿUlam…

, one of the most popular and influential mystic orders of India. It derives its name from Čis̲h̲t, a village near Harat (marked as Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Čis̲h̲t on some maps), where the real founder of the order, Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Abū Is̲h̲āḳ of Syria (Mīr Ḵh̲urd, Siyar al-Awliyāʾ, Delhi 1302, 39-40; Ḏj̲āmī, Nafaḥāt al-Uns , Nawal Kishore 1915, 296) settled at the instance of his spiritual mentor, Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Mams̲h̲ād ʿUlw of Dinawar (a place in Ḳuhistān, between Hamadān and Bag̲h̲dād). The silsila is traced back to the Prophet as follows: Abū Isḥāḳ, Mams̲h̲ād ʿUlw D…

, a Ṣūfī order introduced into India by S̲h̲āh ʿAbd Allāh (d. 890/1485), a descendant of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī [ q.v.]. On reaching India, S̲h̲āh ʿAbd Allāh undertook a lightning tour of the country. Himself clad in royal dress, the disciples accompanying him wore military garb, carried banners and announced his arrival by the beat of drums. In his Laṭāʾif-i g̲h̲aybiyya he explained the basic principles of S̲h̲aṭṭārī discipline, which he considered to be the quickest way to attain gnosis. S̲h̲āh ʿAbd Allah settled at Mānd́ū [ q.v.] where he set up the first S̲h̲aṭṭārī k̲h̲ā…

, a mediaeval Islamic town of the Bengal Sultanate [see bangāla ], now in the Mālda District of the West Bengal State of the Indian Union, and situated about 16 km/10 miles to the south of modern Mālda town, in lat. 25° 8′ N. and long 88° 10′ E. It was the residence of S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Ilyās S̲h̲āh of Bengal (746-59/1345-58) and his five successors, and it was at Pānd́uʾā that he mounted the throne. Pānd́uʾā continued as the capital of the Bengal Sultanate till the reign of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Muḥammad S̲h̲āh (817-35/1414-31), who transferred the capital to Gawr or Lakhnawtī [ q.v.]. On coins, Pānd́uʾ…

Ṭarīḳa (Ar., pls. ṭuruḳ , ṭarāʾiḳ ) is a term which can signify the “manner of behaving” ( sīra ); it thus qualifies the “method” ( mad̲h̲hab ) of a person, the conduct which is typical of him and which should generally be imitated. These definitions supplied by the LʿA (Beirut 1988, viii, 155) accord with Ḳurʾānic usages of ṭarīḳa (cf. in particular, XX, 63, 104). The Ṣūfīs adapted these conceptions, viewing them from a spiritual perspective, but they were careful first of all to relate the term to its most concrete sense: that of “way” or “path”. In this context, ṭarīḳa is synonymous with ṭarīḳ …

according to the Muslim conception bodies ( ad̲j̲sām ) composed of vapour or flame, ¶ intelligent, imperceptible to our senses, capable of appearing under different forms and of carrying out heavy labours (al-Bayḍāwī, Comm. to Ḳurʾān, LXXII, 1; al-Damīrī, Ḥayawān , s.v. d̲j̲inn ). They were created of smokeless flame (Ḳurʾān, LV, 14) while mankind and the angels, the other two classes of intelligent beings, were created of clay and light. They are capable of salvation; Muḥammad was sent to them as well as to mankind…

, variously spelt as Sahasrām, Sasarām, Sassaram, Sasiram, a small town in the S̲h̲āhabād district of Bihar in India (lat. 24° 58′ N., long. 84° 01′ E.), associated with the name of S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr (946-52/1539-45 [see dihlī sultanate ]), initially as his military iḳṭāʿ and subsequently as his burial place, this last considered to be “one of the grandest and most imaginative architectural conceptions in the whole of India” (P. Brown, Indian architecture, 84). Legend ascribes the name to “certain Asura or demon who had a thousand arms, each holding a separate plaything” ( Imperial Gazett…

, one of the most distinguished of Indian Muslim mystics, was born some time in 571/1175 at Kahtwāl, a town near Multān, in a family which traced its descent from the caliph ʿUmar. His grandfather, Ḳāḍī S̲h̲uʿayb, who belonged to a ruling house of Kābul, migrated to India under the stress of the G̲h̲uzz invasions. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Farīd’s first teacher, who exerted a lasting influence on him, was his mother, who kindled that spark of Divine Love in him which later dominated his entire being, and moulded his thought and action. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Farīd received his education in a madrasa …

, a historic city of Kas̲h̲mīr and one of considerable antiquity (lat. 34° 08′ N., long. 74° 50′ E., altitude 1,600 m/5,250 ft), now the summer capital of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union (population 1981: 586,038, the great majority of them Muslims). 1. History. According to the Rād̲j̲atranġiṇī , the city was founded by Aśoka in 250 B.C. and became known as Srīnagarī, the city of Srī or Lak̲h̲s̲h̲mī (the goddess of fortune). It stood at the site of the present village of Pandrethan, some 3 miles above Srīna…