The Empires of the Near East and India: Source Studies of the Safavid, Ottoman, and Mughal Literate Communities

III. The Millennial and Saintly Sovereignty of Emperor Shah Jahan According to a Court Sufi

A. AZFAR MOIN

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Rahman Chishti (d. 1683) was a learned Sufi of the Sabiri Chishti lineage who served as a religious scholar and spiritual adviser in the courts of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (d. 1666). Among his many works is the Mirʾat al-Asrar (Mirror of Secrets) excerpted and translated below.¹ Written between 1635 and 1655, this book is a grand compilation of the lives of holy men and saints, especially but not exclusively of the Sufis of the Chishti order. In it, ʿAbd al-Rahman provides a broad survey of the biography and writings of Sufis and ascetics spanning more than a thousand years, from the earliest generations of Islam to his own time. But the Mirʾat al-Asrar is more than just a book about Muslim saints. It is also a court text and contains extensive details about Mughal imperial genealogy, history, and sacred kingship.

ʿAbd al-Rahman also spent a considerable part of his life as a Mughal courtier, so he begins and ends this work with a praise for Emperor Shah Jahan, his genealogy, and Mughal religious policy, which included a large-scale patronage of Sufis, especially of Chishti Sufis and their saint shrines, especially that of Shaykh Muʿin al-Din (d. 1236) in Ajmer. Ever since Shah Jahan’s grandfather, the Mughal Emperor Jalal al-Din Akbar (d. 1605), had adopted the saint buried in Ajmer as the spiritual patron of his dynasty, Muʿin al-Din Chishti’s tomb had become the most important Sufi and imperial shrine of South Asia. Even Shah Jahan had dedicated a new mosque to the Ajmer shrine in his reign. In sum, the fate of the Chishti Sufi order and the Mughal imperial dynasty had become intertwined in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

FIGURE 4.3 Rosette bearing the names and titles of Shah Jahan

A shamsa (lit., “sun”) beautified by exotic flowers, mythical birds, and animals surrounds the Mughal imperial tughra at the center, which reads “His Majesty Shihabuddin Muhammad Shahjahan, the King, Warrior of the Faith, may God perpetuate his kingdom and sovereignty.”

Source: Folio from the Shah Jahan Album

Date: c. 1645 (recto); c. 1630–40 (verso)

Place of origin: India

Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Rogers Fund and the Kevorkian Foundation Gift, 1955. 55.121.10.39.

But the Mughal dynasty had articulated their sovereignty in an idiom that went beyond their spiritual dependency upon the Chishtis. At the height of his reign, which overlapped with the first millennial anniversary of Islam, Emperor Akbar had declared himself to be the greatest of all saints and above the stature of any holy man, Muslim or otherwise. This episode became known as the Din-i Ilahi (Divine Religion) controversy, in which the Mughal emperor was accused by many Muslim critics of abandoning Islam in favor of a new religion centered on the emperor himself. Although the official Mughal chronicle, composed a decade after the incident, denied that Akbar had abandoned Islam or created a new religion, it nevertheless maintained that the Mughal emperor was the holiest of men who enjoyed a sacred stature above that of any other saint or scholar of Islam and thus was fully capable of ruling independently in matters of religion. The Mughal claim to sacredness was derived from two key sources: Akbar’s descent from Alanqoa, the mythical princess of pagan Mongol legend, who had given a miraculous fatherless birth to the line of Mughal kings after being impregnated by a ray of the sun; and his status as the millennial being inaugurating a new era of peace and justice as a Lord of Conjunction (Sahib Qiran) of Saturn and Jupiter that had taken place in 1582, close to the end of the first millennium of Islam (in 990 Hijri), and signaled the rise of a new sovereign and religious dispensation. This sacredness, which placed the Mughal emperor above the distinctions of religion, enabled him to declare a new religious policy of Universal Peace (Sulh-i Kull) according to which all religious and sectarian communities were given equal protection as long as they swore loyalty to the empire. For such a progressive religious policy to be implemented, the traditional reliance on the consensus of past Muslim jurists, for which the technical legal term was taqlid (imitation of tradition), had to be abandoned.

Akbar’s innovative religious policy and millennial claims to sacredness presented court Sufis such as ʿAbd al-Rahman Chishti with a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge was that the Chishtis were now allied with a dynasty that had a reputation at odds with orthodox Muslim opinion, both Sunni and Shiʿi. Thus ʿAbd al-Rahman takes great pains to show that Shah Jahan and his ancestors were still Sunni Muslims. At the end of Mirʾat al-Asrar, he reports that although Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir (d. 1627), may have taken up the practice of praying to the sun (which was, according to the Alanqoa legend, the father of the Mughal imperial line), this was only to capture the cosmic powers of heavenly body, not to worship it.

Despite the taint of heresy and religious deviancy attached to Mughal imperial customs, the Chishti Sufis also were presented with an opportunity. By supporting the empire, they could promote a religious policy that resonated with the practice of religious coexistence that had existed for centuries at Chishti shrines, which opened their doors to Muslims, Hindus, and followers of other religions. This is what ʿAbd al-Rahman set out to do in his praise and description of Emperor Shah Jahan. Thus he celebrated the millennial birth of Shah Jahan, who had been born in 1000 Hijri. He affirmed the legend of Alanqoa. He equates Shah Jahan with his grandfather, Akbar, and with the founding Mughal ancestor, Amir Timur (d. 1405), whose title “Lord of Conjunction” had inspired Shah Jahan to call himself “Second Lord of Conjunction.” Finally, he lauds the policy of Universal Peace (Sulh-i Kull) that Shah Jahan had also continued after Akbar and Jahangir. The ideal of Universal Peace was based on the abandonment of taqlid (imitation), a key principle of jurisprudence that had seen a revival under the Sunni Ottomans and Uzbeks and the Shiʿi Safavids but at the expense of religious discrimination and sectarian violence. In the place of taqlid, ʿAbd al-Rahman Chishti promoted tahqiq (the pursuit of divine truth), advocated by the great metaphysical thinker Ibn ʿArabi (d. 1240), known as the Greatest Master (Shaykh-i Akbar), whose multivolume works were required reading for Sufi intellectuals. But for tahqiq to replace taqlid required a millennial sovereign such as Shah Jahan who, ʿAbd al-Rahman writes in the Mirʾat al-Asrar, was born a great emperor but died an accomplished saint.

FIGURE 4.4 Portrait of Shah Jahan

A mid-seventeenth century portrait of the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan (d. 1666), on gold-sprinkled paper.

Source: Single leaf of a portrait of Shah Jahan. Walters Ms. W.700

Date: Mid-seventeenth century

Place of origin: India

Credit: Walters Art Museum

TRANSLATION

Excerpts from The Mirror of Secrets (Mirʾat al-Asrar) of ʿAbd al-Rahman Chishti

Avoid the path of taqlid and bigotry,

Erase the two from the slate of your heart.

The desirous self is the wind in bigotry sails,

By taqlid it brings disgrace to humanity.

Bigotry is an obstacle on the path of the seeker,

The way of taqlid is the way of destruction.

O God, destroy the rebellious self,

Throw bigotry out of our disposition.

Guide me to a realization (tahqiq) of unity (tawhid),

Release me from the prison of taqlid.

In the second volume of Tazkira-i Awliya [Biography of Saints by Farid al-Din ʿAttar, d. 1220], it is written that the reigning Caliph once asked Khwaja Abu al-Hasan Hisri, who is a spiritual successor of Khwaja Shibli, what school of jurisprudence (mazhab) did he follow. He replied, “I used to follow the path of Abu Hanifa, then adopted that of Imam Shafi’i, and now I am absorbed in such a thing that I cannot recall anything of any other school.” He asked, “What is that thing?” He replied, “Sufism (tasawwuf).” He asked, “what is Sufism?” He said, “Sufism is that thing without which nothing finds peace and contentment.” Khwaja Hafiz Shirazi has hinted at such a state when he says:

The war of seventy-two sects (of Islam) is to be forgiven;

When they cannot see the truth, they all tell their own version of it.

Shaykh Sharaf al-Din Maniri (d. c. 1380s) relates from Imam Abu ʿAbd Allah Qushayrin the commentary on the book Adab al-Muridin (Etiquettes for Sufi Devotees by Abu al-Najib al-Suhrawardi, d. 1168) that the devotee who associates himself with a particular school of jurisprudence is to be condemned because Sufis have no association with any of the different schools except the path of the people of Sufism (ahl-i tasawwuf), and the reasoned arguments (hujjat) of the people of Sufism in solving all religious issues are better than the reasoned arguments of all other people.

The principles of the school of Sufism are stronger because those belonging to the other schools are masters of transmitted and available knowledge or are experts in reasoning but the community of Sufi masters has progressed beyond all this. What is hidden for others is manifest for them, and what requires proofs for many is evident for them. The school of Sufism has an exterior and an interior aspect. The exterior aspect is that they are mindful of proper etiquette (adab), which is shariʿat. This means that they interact with ordinary people according to the manifest teachings of Islam. According to the rules of shariʿat, they pray for their needs but also help people in fulfilling their desires. The interior aspect of their school is that they always exist in a state and place of righteousness, and this is the reality of their school, that is, in secret they are co-seated with God. Because the order of reality is when God moves someone, he moves, and when He puts someone at rest, he rests. Real power remains with God, and man is simply a puppet. As Shaykh Sharaf al-Din Manirihas said—a statement also found in the writings of other Sufi shaykhs—the person who joins the people of the path and poverty adopts the school of jurisprudence of his Sufi master. Therefore, the King of Gnostics, Abu Yazid Bistami (d. 874 or 878), is of the school of Ja’far Sadiq (the sixth Shiʿi Imam, d. 765). In following the path (ṭariqat), it is not appropriate for a disciple to follow the school of any other than that of his shaykh. He (Shaykh Sharaf al-Din Maniri) has written many words on this topic in his book Sharh Adab al-Muridin (Commentary on ‘Etiquettes for Sufi Devotees’)…. In this way, this seeker of grace and writer of these words, that is, the worthless beggar, ʿAbd al Rahman Chishti son of ʿAbd al-Rasul ibn Qasim son of Shah Budh ʿAbbasi ʿAlavi, is also of the school of the masters of Chisht. Although this servant has benefited from so many Sufi orders that mentioning them all would prolong matters, he is a special beneficiary of the heaven-dwelling family of Chisht…. [A description of his spiritual genealogy and early training in Sufism follows].

Once, while undergoing training, this worthless one, to achieve one of the states achieved by this community (of Sufis), sat in meditation for forty days several times and pursued other ascetic exercises, but I did not reach my goal. It so happened that in those very days, that is, the year 1030 Hijri, in the reign of the Emperor Nur al-Din Muhammad Jahangir, may God’s mercy be upon him, I read the book Tazkirat al-Awliyaʾ (Biography of Saints) with complete supervision and conditions, from beginning to end, word by word. When I reached the section on the King of Gnostics, Bayazid Bistami’s ascension to heaven (miʿraj), I achieved the state that I had always desired. Truth manifested itself. Verily, if knowledge of the lives of past masters had not been beneficial, the Lord would never have revealed the lives of prophets in the Qurʾan to the prophet of God. As God has said (Qurʾanic verse in Arabic), that is, “O Muhammad, we relate to you the conditions of peoples past so that your heart becomes stronger and satisfied.”

So it was from this time that this worthless one’s heart became possessed by the desire to collect from different books the lives and sayings of the blessed family of Chisht and write them down in one book in which there would also be a mention of the masters of other Sufi orders, generation by generation, who were contemporaries of one and another. But because for every deed there is an assigned time, some time went by before I could begin.

Now it is 1045 Hijri. I begin according to the spiritual (batini) instructions of the eminent guide and saint, Muʿin al-Haq wa al-Din Chishti, that is, in the reign of the Lord’s Caliph, possessor of all unending perfections, the sultan of the times, along with justice and charity, may God keep his heart enlightened with the light of faith, and his body with the adherence of the shariʿat of Muhammad Mustafa, that emperor who is entitled with the title of founder victorious commander of the faithful, the shooting star of religion, Muhammad Shah Jahan, Lord of Conjunction the Second (Sahib Qiran-i Sani). May God forever preserve his kingship and life. He is the son of Emperor Nur al-Din Muhammad Jahangir son of Emperor Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar son of Emperor Nasir al-Din Muhammad Humayun son of Emperor Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur son of Sultan ʿUmar Shaykh Mirza son of Sultan Abu Sa’id Mirza son of Sultan MiranShah Mirza son of Hazrat Amir Timur Lord of Conjunction (Sahib Qiran) whose genealogy is connected after fourteen generations to Nur Bakhar Qa’an son of Alanqoa.

This Alanqoa was a woman, adorned with the earthly and spiritual beauty, who was from among the children of Turk son of Japheth son of Noah. Her eminence Mary (mother of Jesus) was also from among the children of Sam son of Noah. So, in the same manner that God used his unique power to have Gabriel through touching or blowing spirit caused Hazrat Jesus to be born without a father, as the holy book bears witness to this act, “Thus we sent to her (Mary’s) side Gabriel who appeared the shape of a man (in front of Mary) and made manifest his beauty” as has been stated in commentaries, God also used his power to have the world enlightening sun, who is the commander of the celestial and elemental worlds, take the shape of a man and penetrate Alanqoa and, with the power of God, Nur Bakhar Qa’an was born of her womb without a father. From that time the office of statehood and sovereignty was made manifest among the progeny of Nur Bakhar Qa’an son of Alanqoa and is so to this day.

God appointed Jesus to the rank of Prophethood so that he, after guiding the denizens of the world, is alive today in the witness of God on the fourth heaven, which is the place of the Great Light (Nayyir-i ʿAzam) (the sun), and He endowed Amir Timur Gurigani with spiritual and material sovereignty (valayat), so that with the power and authority of the sovereignty of the sun, which is the preserve of the pole of sainthood (quṭb), and with the blessings that come from following the prophecy of Muhammad, he [Timur] became the ruler of all the world and received the title of Lord of Conjunction (Sahib Qiran). Today, in his place, the just, the charitable, the learned, the gnostic, Emperor Shahab al-Din Muhammad Shah Jahan is a ruler of his ancestral lands and for this reason is entitled with the title of the Second Lord of Conjunction (Sahib Qiran-i S̱ani). May God with his unique blessing and the dear prophet’s honor grant this worth-recognizing, essence-knowing and people-nurturing emperor a healthy life and grant his progeny honor till the end of time.

Since this book Mirʾat al-Asrar’s fifth section was completed in the reign of the true Caliph Emperor Shah Jahan, it is necessary to narrate his affairs. From history books and reliable people it is found that Prince Sultan Khurram (Shah Jahan) was born in the month of Rabi ʿal-Awwal in the year 1000 Hijri. At that time, Emperor Akbar came to the palace and accepted his grandson as a son and made elaborate arrangements for his care. Thus for fourteen years the prince received training under the beneficent shadow of his grandfather. Based on his God-given knowledge [Akbar was known to be illiterate], Akbar used to say that little Khurram and I were born under the same astral sign (that is, the two of them shared the same cosmic destiny). After the death of his grandfather, Sultan Khurram outshone all his older brothers. When in 1022 Hijri Jahangir went for a pilgrimage to shrine of the saint Muʿin al-Din of Ajmer, he sent Prince Khurram with an army to subdue the rajas. Those campaigns were immensely successful, and the prince returned to his father in Ajmer. Because Prince Sultan Parviz had not met with success in the Deccan, Prince Khurram was sent in his place. There he gained numerous victories, Jahangir was happy enough with them to award him the title of World Emperorship (Shah Jahani), and this couplet was etched on the prince’s seal:

God made the Emperor of the World with fortune high and justice profuse,

King Khurram son of King Jahangir son of King Akbar

Afterward, Jahangir returned to Ajmer seven years later after traveling though Malwa and Gujarat. From there he arrived at Akbarabad (present day Agra). In those days, this poor soul, the writer of these words, was also accompanying Jahangir for a few days as part of an assembly in which he had organized a wonderful spiritual dialogue. At the time, the accomplished gnostic Mir Sayyid Niʿmatullah Qadiri, who later on became the pole (highest spiritual appointee or qutb) in the province of Bengal, had come by the way of Deccan and Gujarat and was the deputy (khalifa) of Shah ʿAlam Mahbub-i ʿAlam. The vessel of perfection Makhdum Shaykh ʿUsman, a resident of Bayana, had also come to Akbarabad to participate in that gathering. For one year, this worthless one and Mir Sayyid Ni’matullah learned from Shaykh ʿUsman every day.

One day, Mir Sayyid Ali told Shaykh ʿUsman that Jahangir called Sayyid Muhammad Mastur for a private audience in the night and said, “My heart bears witness to your spiritual knowledge (ʿirfan). This is why I am going to tell you about my spiritual state, that is, I am a Muslim and my ancestors were also Muslim and followers of truth. In the prayers I repeat morning and evening, as God knows best, I do not worship the sun but say these Divine Names to subjugate (taskhir) the sun so that it becomes my agent, because certain past rulers, philosophers, and Sufi masters have made use of the subjugation of the planets, as is found in the sayings of your honored Sufis. You must believe me when I say that I am a seeker of truth with my heart and soul. If you order me, I can even give up my kingship, but there are two things that I am unable to do and am powerless in this. One is to give up wine, to which I am accustomed to since childhood. Second, to pray five times a day regularly is difficult for me. For God’s sake, show me the right path.”

Mir Sayyid Muhammad said, “Our masters have taught that the first pillar (of Islam) is to offer timely prayers and to abstain from wine. But you have entered the circle of God’s friends because of the blessings of your good intentions. God has created every person for an appointed task. He has granted you His caliphate and granted His kingdom to you. So your duty is to protect your God-given kingdom and meet the needs of the people with justice. Keep God in your mind at all times and remain conscious of His Absolute Power. Your faith consists in this and nothing else.” Shaykh ʿUsman was very pleased to hear of the king’s conversation and prayed for him.

One day Emperor Jahangir in his gracious kindness invited Shah Jahan to a private audience and said, “Baba [a term of endearment], seek knowledge because knowledge is necessary for the worship of God and the affairs of the state. My dear father [Emperor Akbar] always used to give me counsel to pursue knowledge because it is difficult to manage the affairs of state without learning from the books of history and the writings of Sufis. In this day and age, Shaykh Sufi is the master of these above mentioned fields. Learn from him. He is a righteous man and a fountain of knowledge.”

Shaykh Sufi, after mastering the transmitted and the rational sciences, swore allegiance to to Shaykh Nizam al-Din of Ambeth and after his death went to Gujarat and there learned for many years from Shaykh Wajih al-Din Gujarati who was the deputy (khalifa) of Shaykh Muhammad Ghaws of Gwalior. There he received a certificate in Fusus al-Hikam and Futuhat Makkiyya (Ibn ʿArabi’s Bezels of Wisdom and The Meccan Revelations), and he wrote a delightful commentary on the Fusus. He was unrivaled in the esoteric sciences (ʿilm-i haqaʾiq, an expression also used for the teachings of Ibn ʿArabi), which is why Makhdumi Shaykh Hatim Ibrahimabadi received his certificate in the Fusus from him. The worthless writer of these words received his certificate in the Fusus from Shaykh Hatim. This worthless one also entered the presence of Shaykh Sufi many times. He is counted among the servants of God, may He bless him.

In any case, this worthless one remained in Akbarabad for a while and saw that every day Shaykh Sufi went to Shah Jahan and taught him from the history Tabaqat-i Nasiri (Generations of the Age of Nasir, written by Minhaj al-Siraj Juzjani in 1260 CE) and the next day from the letters of Shaykh Sharaf al-Din Maniri. As part of the process, he also taught the prince from the sciences of Qurʾanic exegesis and the traditions of the Prophet as well as the terminology of the Sufis and the sum of many other rare sciences, and informed him about the path of Sunni Islam, which is based on transmitted texts and which has been followed by all venerable Sufis. When, in 1028 Hijri, Jahangir left for the first time for a tour of Kashmir, so this worthless one left Akbarabad for his home and devoted himself to meditation and ascetic exercises.

The emperor fell ill upon his return from Kashmir. The cause was that, according to divine custom, at that time the protection of the emperor’s dominion was in the hands of Shaykh Pir Shattari, who was among the awtad (“pegs,” a high spiritual rank but lower than that of the axis or “qutb”], but the responsibility for protecting the person of the emperor was in the hands of my master, Shaykh Hamid Chishti who had passed away in 1032 Hijri, and no other had been appointed in his place. Thus the emperor fell severely ill. When his condition did not improve for some years, he could no longer tend to the affairs of the state, and the Queen Nur Jahan took over most of the work. She was a woman of defective intellect (naqis al-ʿaql). She supported Prince Shaharyar and began to oppose Shah Jahan, which caused chaos and disorder. On the other side, the emperor’s condition worsened until that just sovereign, after twenty-three years of rule, in the month of Safar, 1027 Hijri, died on the way to Kashmir and was buried in Lahore. May God’s mercy be upon him.

Shah Jahan, who had left for Deccan because of Queen Nur Jahan’s mischief, arrived in Akbarabad on 7 Jamadi al-Awwal and ascended the throne. As a result, the entire country, which had suffered ruin, experienced a revival and an era of justice and order began. God had awarded the emperor a strong inclination toward Sunni Islam. Without any prejudice, he would be mindful of the Qurʾan and hadith in all matters. According to the Qurʾanic verse, “O Prophet, say to the people that I do not expect any payment from you except devotion to the relatives [of the Prophet],” and the hadith tradition, “My people of the [Prophet’s] house are like the ship of Noah,” the emperor was constant in his love for the descendants of the Prophet and his companions.

One day the emperor asked Mir Sayyid Jalal ibn Mir Sayyid Muhammad Bukhari, who was Shah ʿAlam Mahbub-i ʿAlam Gujarati’s successor, about his conviction in the matter of Prophet’s companion and his family. He replied that my noble ancestor Hazrat Makhdum Jahaniyan Sayyid Jalal al-Din Bukhari had received religious education from the Suhrawardiyya order and the leader of this order, Shaykh Shahab al-Din ʿUmar’s (d. 1234), beliefs are to be found in the book ʿAwarif al-Maʿarif (Knowledge of the Gnostics). I also hold these convictions. He sent for the ʿAwarif al-Maʿarif and studied it. This is what is written in it:

The appropriate belief is that one should express devotion for all the [Prophet’s] companions and preference for none. If love for any one of them should overwhelm the heart, then it should be kept secret because its expression is not necessary. But in the matter of the difference that arose between Amir al-Mu’minin ʿAli and Amir Muʿawiya, our conviction is that Amir al-Muʿminin ʿAli was true in his sovereignty (khilafat) and legal reasoning (ijtihad) and more competent in the matters of the caliphate, and that Amir Muʿawiya was not in the right and not deserving of the caliphate.

Upon hearing this, the emperor said that, Praise be to God, this is also my conviction.

Once the emperor presented himself in the service of the Refuge of the Gnostics, Shaykh Miyan Mir of Lahore, who was the chief of the individual mystics. During a conversation, he asked a question about the matter of the caliphate. The shaykh, in his erudite wisdom, simply said, “Since you possess many books of commentary and prophetic traditions, why ask me? Whatever goes against Holy Scripture, do not believe in it and stay silent. God has said, ‘There is nothing wet and nothing dry that is not in the Qurʾan.’”

The emperor became very glad upon hearing these wise words, and began to praise the shaykh’s intellect and foresight. Also, he gained the true answer he was seeking. That is to say, everyone is familiar with the emperor’s policy of Sulh-i Kull (Universal Peace). When the Uzbek ruler of Turan conquered Iran, overwhelmed by sectarian prejudice, he put to the sword countless descendants of the Prophet, ʿulamaʾ, and notables, and came to be known as the “Khariji” (“Seceder,” a label originally used for an early group of Muslims who rejected the caliphate of ʿAli). When the emperor of Iran conquered Turan, he too killed several thousand ʿulamaʾ and notables and became known as the “Rafizi” (“Refuser,” a label originally used for early Muslims, supporters of ʿAli, who rejected the caliphate of the first three caliphs before ʿAli). But, when Shah Jahan defeated ʿAli Mardan Khan and took the province of Qandahar, he did not harm a single person. Instead, he rewarded everyone according to their station with rank and estate. Similarly, when he conquered the province of Balkh from the ruler of Turan, he did not persecute anyone there but rewarded all according to what they deserved and brought them to his side. He did not let the principle of moderation out of his sight, and thus did not invite divine wrath. This steadfastness is akin to grace because he did not stray from the letter of Qurʾan and hadith. When the rightful caliph’s justice became famous, people of every country, every nation, and every religion began to come to Hindustan to achieve their desires. The people of Hinduism were also content in their place, but the rightful caliph’s heart was so suffused with the brotherhood and equality of the religion of Muhammad that every group loved Muslims, and Hindus and Fire Worshippers had become so obedient and submissive that in every alley and marketplace cows used to be slaughtered but no one would object and look upon this with hate, but instead they would willingly and lovingly give their daughters to the emperor and his courtiers. Despite this dominance of Islam, I did not find a single person who held a grievance against the rightful caliph, and the reason for this was that the emperor of Islam was without bigotry and followed the commandments of the Qurʾan and the traditions of the Prophet.

The emperor had four sons and he had given each of them, since childhood, training in the religious sciences and principles of governance, and appointed them at the head of an army. He named the oldest son, Prince Dara Shikuh, as the heir appointed and kept him in his presence. Prince Shuja was given the governorate of Bengal. Deccan was given to Prince Aurangzeb. Prince Muradbakhsh was made ruler of Gujarat. Although all the princes lived gloriously like emperors, they remained firmly loyal and obedient to their lord father. In this manner, for thirty-two years, the imperial dominion was managed with peace and magnanimity and the emperor along with his princes pursued the business of religion and the world, and looked after his people. Amir Timur had also reigned for thirty-two years. But in the end, after the highpoint of well-being and blessing, the meaning of the verse of the Qurʾan, “Today I perfected for you, your religion, and I completed upon you my blessing,” manifested itself and the sun of the emperor’s good fortune came to set. At the time, Shaykh Firuz, who was among the seven “Abdals” (“Substitutes,” a spiritual rank of sainthood) and was appointed to the protection of the emperor, passed away from this life in the month of Ramadan, and the emperor’s health began to fail. After some time, that is, on 8 Zul Hajj, 1067 Hijri, he became violently ill and this humble servant, who was appointed to protect the emperor’s sovereignty also fell ill on 12 Zul Hajj 1067 and for several years remained in his sickbed because of which the work of protecting the country could not be accomplished despite the fact that other appointees had also been present. But in the face of divine will, no way could be found and disorder spread in all directions and all the princes became claimants to the throne.

First of all, Prince Muhammad Shujaʿ raised the flag of rebellion in Bengal. Prince Dara Shikuh gave his oldest son Muhammad Sulayman Shikuh a huge army and brought Prince Shujaʿ to an end. This army had not yet returned when Prince Aurangzeb and Prince Muradbakhsh arrived at Akbarabad with a grand army. Dara Shikuh had no choice but to leave the emperor in the fortress of Akbarabad on his sickbed and to take the imperial army in battle against his brothers. But despite much effort, Dara Shikuh suffered clear defeat and left for Lahore. The emperor was greatly disappointed upon seeing this but despite his illness was not able to do much or to take matters of state in his own hand. So he decided to take up quiet abode in the fortress of the Akbarabad, and Prince Aurangzeb, with the consensus of the ʿulamaʾ of the time, in the month of Ramadan in 1068 Hijri in Shah Jahanabad (Delhi), ascended the throne and had the Friday sermon read in his name.

It was divine commandment that Emperor Shah Jahan ended his day in the circle of the renouncers of this world, and in the afterlife he will be raised among the friends of God (that is, as a saint) because for seven years he remained busy in the worship of God, the recitation of the Qurʾan, the study of the books of exegesis and prophetic traditions and gave away a large amount of gold to the poor and downtrodden. Finally on 26 Rajab 1067 Hijri, Shahab al-Din Muhammad Shah Jahan, the Second Lord of Conjunction, departed for the eternal world. His and his wife’s tomb had already been constructed in Akbarabad on the banks of the Jamuna River. The emperor, according to his will, was buried there.

NOTES

1. Translated selections are from ʿAbd al-Rahmaan Chishti, Mirʾat al-Asrar (Urdu translation), trans. Wahid Baksh Sayyal Chishti Sabri (Lahore: Ziya al-Qurʾan, 1993), 52–57, 1255–63.