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103 five Money, Non-Muslims, Women, and Saints The Economic Foundation of Sufi Life The primary means of support for Bukhārī, his khānqāh, and his disciples were unsought donations ( futūh ˙ ) from the community at large, especially its wealthiest members, the king and the nobility. Whether or not it was appropriate to accept such donations was a topic of some disagreement among Sufis at this time. According to K. A. Nizami, one of the primary differences between the Chishtī and Suhrawardī orders lay in their attitudes towards the acceptance and accumulation of donations; the Chishtīs were reluctant to take futūh ˙, , and if they did they gave it away immediately, while the Suhrawardīs accepted gifts and hoarded wealth.1 This distinction was most pronounced in the lifetimes of Bahā’ al-dīn Zakarīyā, who owned sixty-seven villages from grants and purchase, and Farīd al-dīn Mas‘ūd, who owned none. Bukhārī’s defensive explanation of Bahā’ al-dīn’s accumulation of property is that God and his friends are served by the world. The world, by way of rulers and the wealthy, served Bahā’ al-dīn by giving him property. Furthermore, a saint is like a beautiful woman whose friends protect her from the evil eye by marking her face with black dots. The property given to the saint is the disfigurement meant to protect him from jealousy.2 (Though I would think it would be a greater source of jealousy than his saintliness.) Later generations of both orders deviated from the pattern of extremes set up by Bahā’ al-dīn Zakarīyā and Farīd al-dīn Mas‘ūd. Bukhārī’s position lay somewhere between the two. According to Bukhārī, the Prophet said that one should not refuse futūh ˙ unless one knows that it comes from a haram (illegitimate or illegal) source.3 The latter question, whether the futūh ˙ was haram or halal, was of the greatest importance for Bukhārī. Distinguishing between halal and haram was a basic requirement for Bukhārī’s conception of correct action. However, besides applying the terms to the legality or illegality of action, he used them most frequently to refer to material objects, usually food, clothing, and buildings. If any of these objects is haram, the ritual action of the person who has eaten such food, or is wearing such clothing, or is praying in such a building is invalid. “If there is one thread in one’s clothes that is 104 Teaching and Practice haram or from a haram source, or one mouthful of food that is haram, no act [of devotion] of his will be accepted.”4 So the darwēsh who is given any donation must ascertain its legitimacy before accepting it. When is an object haram? The most familiar answer is that certain objects are simply forbidden, such as wine, pork, silk clothing on men, and so on. But things can also be haram in less obvious ways. If wealth is derived from illegal sources, then anything, such as food bought with such wealth, is also haram. Given that the Sufi community attracted significant donations from the wealthy and was frequently dependent on them, the suspicion that these donations might be haram was an ongoing problem. In Bukhārī’s anecdotes, great saints were able to discover the illegitimacy of offered food through mystical insight. Bahā’ al-dīn Zakarīyā, Jalāl Surkh-posh, and Jamāl al-dīn Uchchī were once offered food from which each of them instinctively recoiled; as it turned out the dish was made from a sheep that had been sacrificed after it had died of natural causes.5 In Jamāl al-dīn Uchchī’s case, God would even transform donations ( futūh ˙ ) from illegitimate sources into something halal. Bukhārī himself once heard a voice telling him that his turban, made from clothing donated by a government official , was haram.6 But most people could not rely on such methods, and Bukhārī constantly advised his disciples to be wary of all food, clothing, and shelter that they used. The most likely sources of illegitimate gifts were rulers and others in authority— precisely the group upon which the Sufi establishments were most dependent. Bukhārī quotes Fatāwā al-khānīya (by Imām Fakhr al-dīn H ˙ usayn b. Mans ˙ ūr Awzjandī, d. 592/1196) to the...

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