Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond

Islam in South Asia has been deeply marked by the mystical and devotional tradition of Sufism, particularly by the Chishti Order, the most widespread and influential Sufi order in the region and the one with the deepest identification with the Indian subcontinent. In this book, Carl Ernst and Bruce Lawrence have collaborated to bring their decades of scholarship on the Chishtiyya to a new height. Sufi Martyrs of Love is "an appreciation of a centuries-old spiritual journey" (2), bringing to light heretofore untapped texts and figures as well as synthesizing and assessing previous scholarship.

The central endeavor of this work is to break away from what the authors see as problematic models of historical scholarship on Sufism. In particular, they reject periodizations of Islam and Sufism which posit a tripartite scheme of Golden Age, decline, and revival. Such periodizations have led scholars to focus on supposedly foundational moments and individuals—in the Chishti case, on the revered saints of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As Ernst and Lawrence point out, this is precisely the time period most poorly documented by contemporary sources and most obscured by hagiographical legend. The authors reject the attempts of scholars such as P. M. Currie "to winnow the few pellets of truth lying beneath all the accumulated dross of legend and superstition" and of those like S. A. A. Rizvi who "excavate and then array massive chunks of obscure information about little-known saints" (48). Instead, Sufi Martyrs of Love provides a phenomenological description of the Chishti Order, its practices, and its patterns of mastery and hagiography, down to the present day, both within the Indian subcontinent and beyond.

Before entering into the specificity of the Chishti Order, the authors provide an extremely helpful and elegant introduction to the Sufi "dialectic of love and knowledge" (14) and the quest for fana' (annihilation) and baqa' (restoration or permanence in God) pursued within the social institution of a Sufi order. The fundamental building blocks of the Sufi orders are the relationships between the disciples or seekers and their masters or guides on the mystic path. The lineages or spiritual genealogies constructed from the master–disciple relationship connect the Sufi initiate to the earlier tradition and ultimately to the Prophet Muhammad, thus authenticating the practice of the Sufi order.

Having laid out the general pattern of a Sufi order, Ernst and Lawrence turn to the practices that distinguish the Chishtiyya from other Sufi orders: their style of zikr (remembrance of the divine through repetition of his name) and especially their practice of sama'. Much more distinctive than Chishti zikr was sama', the controversial practice of listening to music as a way to experience religious ecstasy. Though South Asian Sufi music, particularly the qawwali of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, has found a worldwide audience, few scholars have adequately dealt with it as part of the Sufi tradition. Ernst and Lawrence's discussion of Chishti theorizing of sama' is the most cogent explanation of the underlying philosophical issues in the debate over whether it is permissible and, if so, whether it is merely a step on the path or "itself the ultimate mystical experience" (34). While earlier Sufi theorists had debated the permissibility and efficacy of sama', the Chishtis adopted it to the extent that it became the marker that distinguished them from other Sufi orders, "the preeminent symbol crystallizing their position" (36). The authors show how Chishti thinkers used earlier statements on sama' from the Sufi tradition to develop the idea that it is inextricably linked to the experience of "empathetic ecstasy," itself a "threshold experience incumbent on all Sufi aspirants" (44).

Chapters 3 to 5 of Sufi Martyrs of Love discuss the basic institutions of the Chishti order: the hagiographical tradition, patterns of sainthood, and the visitation of shrines. Though some of the general theoretical statements on these topics have been made elsewhere, often by the authors themselves, new examples of people, places, and texts are brought forward for examination here. Previously neglected minor figures are highlighted, and the discussions are brought up to date with material from the twentieth century. Thus, in the chapter on "The Chishti Masters," the famous early saint Nizam ad-Din Awliya' (d. 1325) is compared to a relatively minor figure, Ashraf Jahangir Simnani (d. 1425), as well as to a modern master, Sayyid Zauqi Shah (d. 1951). Here and throughout these chapters, Ernst and Lawrence demonstrate the value of their alternative to the rhetoric of a "Golden Age" and subsequent decline and revival.

The last two chapters of Sufi Martyrs of Love bring our knowledge of the Chishti order into the hitherto largely unexplored terrain of the modern period. During the nineteenth century, the two major Chishti lineages, the Sabiriyya Chishtiyya and the Nizamiyya Chishtiyya, continued and preserved the traditions of the order in the changed context of life under British rule. At the same time, they adapted to the new possibilities of modernity, particularly through their use of "the technology of modern communications and the literary genres of modernity" (126). Descriptions of South Asian Islam in the nineteenth century typically focus on the various "reform" movements whose ideas have since dominated elite Muslim discourse in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Ernst and Lawrence provide a valuable counterpoint to the facile assumption of a break between the reformers and the Sufi tradition in their discussion of one of the most well-known representatives of the Deobandi school, Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanvi (d. 1943), his place in the Chishti tradition, and his reformist interpretation of that tradition.

To combat the rhetoric of decline and revival, Ernst and Lawrence strive to show the continuity of Chishti spiritual practices and models of sanctity. Though very effective, especially in illuminating the ways in which recent Chishtis, such as Zauqi Shah (d.1951), Wahid Bakhsh Sial (d. 1995), and Hazrat Inayat Khan (d. 1927), have adapted and carried on the tradition, this strategy sometimes appears to be pushing very different and individually fascinating characters into a single mold. It also occasionally leads to a certain defensiveness with regard to potentially negative aspects of Chishti history, such as Zauqi Shah's use of anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic polemic, or the political and economic entanglements of the major Chishti shrines and their caretakers. "However much these ideals were compromised, nevertheless they remained ideals throughout. Some social historians tend to focus on the compromises. [. . .] The alternative is to point out the persistence of the ideals—which is what the sources do and what we, too, will try to do" (96). It seems to this reader that ideals are precisely most interesting in the ways in which they are compromised.

One of the problems with any attempt to describe a single Sufi order is that it is not a discrete entity with clearly defined boundaries. As Ernst and Lawrence acknowledge, ideas and practices were held in common or adopted from other orders, and initiation into multiple orders was a common practice in certain periods. Some of the individuals who figure prominently in this book, such as Ashraf Jahangir Simnani and Shah Mina of Lucknow, though remembered primarily as Chishti saints, were initiated into multiple orders. There are also those who were initiated and initiated others into the Chishtiyya but are seen as belonging to other orders. The biographies of the early Chishti saints provided in the Appendix are largely drawn from the work of the "Qadiri loyalist" 'Abd al-Haqq Muhaddith Dihlawi. Ashraf 'Ali Thanvi, discussed in chapter 6, "Colonial Chishtis," is better known as a proponent of the Deobandi tradition of legalistic reform. Such figures pose a challenge to any simple understanding of a Chishti identity. While Sufi Martyrs of Love exposes the complexities of the Chishtiyya, one is still left wondering what it means to be affiliated to a particular Sufi order, or to venerate its saints, within the context of multiple, and often competing, Sufi and Islamic commitments.

For further research into such questions, Ernst and Lawrence provide an invaluable resource in the two bibliographies appended to Sufi Martyrs of Love. The first is a comprehensive listing of scholarship and primary source translations in European languages. The second is a selective bibliography of sources in Persian and Urdu, ranging from thirteenth-century Sufi compositions to contemporary scholarship, and including both manuscript and printed materials. These bibliographies are in themselves sufficient to make Sufi Martyrs of Love an indispensable starting point for further study of the Chishti Order.