Aa’ina-e-Hind—The Mirror of India and the Mystic of Bengal!
By
Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, New Age Islam
20 May 2024
“ الحق وی آئینۂ ہند بود کہ تمام ہند رونق ارشاد وہدایت بیفزود”
"The Truth Is That He [Akhi Seraj] Is The Mirror
Of India (A’aina-E-Hind) With Whose Wisdom And Guidance The Whole Of India Would
Continue To Bask In Glory And Spiritual Light."
~Mahbub-e-ilahi Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya R.A.
Main
Point:
1. The 14th-century Sufi mystic in
Bengal, Syed Akhi Usman Serajuddin, popularly known as Akhi Seraj and greatly
revered as “Aaina-e-Hind” (mirror of Hindustan) is extremely important. He
spent all his life in the wider dissemination of syncretic Sufi teachings and
Chishti spiritual intellect in the vast land of undivided Bengal….
Bengal—the
vast land of ancient Vaishnavism, Shavism, Jainism and Buddhism—
became the heartland of Syncrectic Sufism with the birth and emergence of
Chishti Sufi sages like Sheikh Akhi Serajuddin Usman. Born in Gaur, a town in
Bengal, Akhi Seraj became more popularly known as “Aaina-e-Hind” (Mirror of
India) as well as “Sultan-ul-Mashaikh” (King of the Saints) among the
prominent Caliphs of Chishti-Sufi master Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya RA of Delhi.
Of course,
all the Caliphs of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya were of high spiritual ranks. But
among them, Hazrat Sheikh Naseeruddin Chiragh Dehlvi, and then Aaina-e-Hind
Hazrat Akhi Seraj gained great popularity and prominence. The Chishti Sufi
lineage in the Indian subcontinent continued from these two elders of the
Silsilah. In the words of Mahbub-e-Ilahi Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya who extolled
Akhi Seraj among his chief disciples, as follows: "He is the mirror of
India". He is reported to have said, as quoted in the celebrated work on
Sufi Mystics in Persian “Rawdat-ul-Aqtab”:
“ الحق وی آئینۂ ہند بود کہ تمام ہند رونق ارشاد وہدایت بیفزود”
"The
truth is that he (Akhi Seraj) is the Mirror of India (Aaina-e-Hind) with
whose wisdom, spiritual presence and guidance the whole of India would continue
to bask in glory and guidance."
As a
result, many Mystics were enlightened by the grace of this Bengali-Sufi sage.
He became the disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya at an early age. After
serving his Murshid for a few years, he went to his mother's service in
Lakhnoti, presently known as “Gaur” in Bengal. When the time of his caliphate
came, Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya said that the first condition was adequate
knowledge, but Akhi Seraj did not have that much knowledge. Then, Maulana
Fakhruddin Zarradi took up the responsibility to make him a scholar in six
months. So, Maulana Zarradi, before he started teaching him, wrote a book only
for him, which he named "Tasrif-e-Usman" (Transformation of Usman).
Only after he read and accomplished this book, he was honoured and bestowed
with the caliphate and authority (Ijaazat-o-Khilafat) by Hazrat
Nizamuddin Auliya R.A who declared him the Spiritual Governor of the East (Wali-e-Diyar-i-Mashriq).
Sheikh
Abdul Haq Muhaddis Dehlvi writes in his famous work “Akhbar Al-Akhyaar” that
the 14th century Sufi mystic of Bengal, Syed Akhi Usman Serajuddin was greatly
revered as “Aaina-e-Hind” (the Mirror of Hindustan). One of the spiritual
vicegerents of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia R.A, Akhi Seraj also attained closeness
with Baba Fariduddin and acquired thorough spiritual knowledge from Shaikh
Fakhruddin Zarradi.
Akhi Seraj
founded the Chishti Sufi tradition in Bengal which later became the beacon
light for the entire subcontinent particularly in terms of religious and social
harmony. The first Sufi hospice (khanqah) in Bengal was also established by
Akhi Seraj. In Bengal, he had prominent disciples and successors like Hazrat
Ala-ul-Haq of Pandua and Hazrat Amir Khurd. It is mentioned in Siyar-ul-Auliya,
a Persian biography of India’s Chishti Sufi saints that Akhi Seraj “illumined
the whole region with his spiritual radiance”. The local Bengali people had so
much love and veneration for him that they called him “Piran-e-Pir” (the saint
of saints), an epithet generally attributed to Baghdad’s greatest Sufi saint,
Abdul Qadir Jilani.
An
extremely modest mystic and Sufi master, Akhi Seraj spent all his short-lived
life in the wider dissemination of spiritual intellect in the vast land of
Bengal. His teachings left an everlasting impact on the syncretic culture and
beliefs of Muslims in Bengal. As a result, most Bengali Muslims adhere to the
spiritual strain of Islam even today. As the true “mirror of India”, his
spiritual light radiated from his discourses on divine knowledge and
illuminated the whole region.
Prominent
saints of Bengal quenched their thirst from the spiritual fountain of
Aa’ina-e-Hind. Some of his disciples belonged to aristocratic families with
close relations to the government of Sultan Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah. But he
taught them to live the modest life of a Sufi. He sought to change the elitist
ways of his upper-class murids (disciples). For instance, Ala-ul-Haq whose
father was the treasurer of the provincial government in Bengal was enjoined to
humble himself by walking with a hot cauldron on his head. In his devotion to
his master, Ala-ul-Haq would carry a cauldron of hot food on his head even
though it would burn his hair.
It is
mentioned in Akhbar-ul-Akhyar written by Sheikh Abdul Haqq Muhaddis Dehlvi, a
famous Persian treatise on Sufism: Once a dervish from Suhrawardy Sufi order
came to spend time with Akhi Seraj. He noticed that after the night prayer (Isha),
Akhi Seraj went to bed, while he was busy praying and supplicating all night.
But in the morning, he was offering the Morning Prayer (Fajr) without
Wuzu (ablution). Seeing this, the dervish said, “I am surprised that you were
asleep all night and now you pray without ablution!” Seraj replied in a
remarkable Persian couplet:
Agar Ashiq Beh Masjid Dar Nayamad
Dil-E-Ashiq Hamesha Dar Namaz Ast
Translation: The heart of a true lover — ashiq
— is always in worship, even if he doesn’t attend a mosque for a prayer.
Among the
close disciples he had, Sultan-ul-Murshidin Hazrat Alaul Haq Pandawi RA gained
extraordinary popularity in the Bengal region. He is the one who trained his
disciple and spiritual heir as the most notable Chishti sage of India—Hazrat
Syed Ashraf Jahangir Samnani RA who reached the heights of “Qutb-i-Alam” (Pole
of the World), Ghaus-ul-Alam (Head of the Saintly World) and Mehboob-e-Yazdani
(Beloved of the Divine).
Dr Abdul
Lateef (Department of History at Aligarh Muslim University) who did his PhD
entitled, The Muslim Mystic Movements in Bengal from the 14th to the Middle of
the 16th Century A.D. writes:
“The Mystic stream that trickled down to Bengal
during the middle of the 14th century was never enforced after Sheikh Akhi
Siraj. Consequently, no other important saint after him entered and worked in
Bengal. The Qadiri, the Suhrawardy, the Shattari, the Firdausi, and the
Naqshbandi Sufi orders which existed and exercised tremendous influence in
other parts of India could not simultaneously extend the sphere of their
activities in Bengal. Only the Chishti Silsila was destined to play an
important role in the social, political and spiritual life of Bengal, and it
produced saints like Alaul Haqq and Nur Qutb Aalam, who planted and popularized
the mystic traditions in the region.”
----
A Regular Columnist with Newageislam.com, Ghulam
Rasool Dehlvi is an Indo-Islamic scholar, Sufi poet and
English-Arabic-Urdu-Hindi writer with a background in a leading Sufi Islamic
seminary in India.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islam-spiritualism/aaina-hind-mirror-india-mystic-bengal/d/132347
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