South Asia Research

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Register here to gain access to SAGE's 500+ Journals Online

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Aquil, R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
South Asia Research, Vol. 28, No. 1, 23-48 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/026272800702800102

Articles

Hazrat-I-Dehli

The Making of the Chishti Sufi Centre and the Stronghold of Islam

Raziuddin Aquil

Dr Raziuddin Aquil is a Fellow in History at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. His research interests include Sufism and the making of Islam in the Indian subcontinent. He has extensively published on Sufism, Muslim culture, and politics (most recently Aquil, 2007). Address: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, R-1 Baishnabghata Patuli Township, Kolkata 700 094, India. [email: razi.aquil{at}gmail.com]

This article explores the significant linkages between the rise of Delhi as the foremost Sufi centre and the bastion of Islam as well as the seat of political power in the 13th and 14th centuries. Three out of the first five leading Chishti saints of the Sultanate period chose to live in Delhi, catapulting the city onto the map of the sacred geography of South Asian Islam. The Chishti Sufis also helped in shaping the cosmopolitan character of the city, even as they ensured that the interests of Islam and Muslims were safeguarded. Hence, though Delhi remained the centre of Muslim power for close to six centuries and its landscape is dotted with mosques, madrasas and dargahs of the Sufis, the exclusionist, juridical interpretation of Islam was sidelined in favour of a more inclusive approach to religion practised and propagated by the Chishtis. The essay charts this process and its significance for the early history of Islam in India.

Key Words: Chishti Sufis • conversion • Delhi • Delhi Sultanate • Islam in India • medieval Indian architecture • medieval Indian urban • history, Sufism


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?