Professor Siddiqi’s The Bahmanī Ṣūfīs is an updated version of his doctoral thesis (Osmania University, 1975) which was first published by the Idarah-i Adabiyyat in 1989, now slightly reworked with newly-discovered sources.
Siddiqi traces the migration of Muslims into the Deccan, reiterates his earlier argument that the first Sufis to enter the Deccan were not the Chishtis but rather saints who claimed Junaydi descent, and discusses the relationships between the Sufis and the Sultans in two phases in Gulbarga (1347–1422) and Bidar (1422–1538), based on a changing ethnic structure and the court’s evolving relationship with sufi orders. The historiographical lacuna that Siddiqi purports to be addressing is that while scholars have charted the functioning of Sufis in north India, little or nothing is known about the Sufi settlements and their activities in south India and the Deccan during pre-Bahmani and Bahmani times (p. xviii). Siddiqi notes that many of the materials produced by and about these Sufis are jealously guarded, and that he had to approach intermediaries very carefully (p. xvii). This is an important aspect that few scholars speak of openly. In a short Foreword, Richard M Eaton commends Siddiqi for his efforts at tracking down, preserving, and publishing new material.
Part I of the book consists of two chapters, the first of which studies the Muslims—primarily Arab traders—who settled in coastal south India if not during, then soon after, Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime, and set up mosques and other institutions, which eventually began to incorporate local inhabitants as well. Siddiqi reinforces the stereotypical narrative of difference between southern and northern India, as he notes that ‘Muslim settlers in south India were travellers, traders and also preachers of Islam. In the north, they came as invaders and conquerors. In the south, there was no subjugation but in the north, the Hindu rulers and the people remained subjugated throughout the Sultanate and the Mughal periods. This changed the psyche of the majority population of the north, but composite culture flourished in the south and the Deccan’ (p. 12). The second chapter focuses on the early Sufi activity in the Deccan until 1327. Siddiqi takes a static view of the early Chishti masters’ ideology regarding their relationship with elites, their economic practices, and their theological beliefs, as his purpose is to understand deviations apparent in the Deccan. Siddiqi’s view of the northern Muslims as invaders, and of the centre colonizing the periphery, hampers him from studying both the local context of the Deccan as well as the individual actors to understand how different tendencies resulted in distinct and variegated patterns, as understood by Peter Jackson (The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History, 1999), Richard M Eaton (Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India, 1978), Simon Digby (‘Before Timur Came’, JESHO, 2004), and Nile Green (Making Space: Sufis and Settlers in Early-Modern India, 2012).
The second part of the book concentrates on the Sufi orders which operated during Bahmani times, described in tandem with contemporary political events and rulers. One chapter reiterates Chishti tenets as found in north India and discusses Zain al-Din Shirazi’s and Gisudaraz’s relationships with the rulers. After Zain al-Din’s passing in 1369, Siddiqi sees a vacuum in Sufi activities in the Deccan, until the coming of Gisudaraz at the turn of the fifteenth century. The next chapter discusses Gisudaraz’s descendants, and describes the involvement of the Bahmani rulers in disputes after Gisudaraz’s death in 1422, the same year the Bahmani capital shifted from Gulbarga to Bidar. The chapters on the Junaydis and Qadiris reiterate Siddiqi’s findings from his earlier work, and although he claims that scholars have ignored the fourteenth-century presence of Sufis belonging to these orders in the Deccan, he does not question why we have no contemporary evidence of them, nor interrogate the possible motivations behind the creation of retrospective genealogies and royal constructions at sufi habitations (PM Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Mu’in al-Din Chishti of Ajmer, 1989; Jyoti Gulati Balachandran, Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, 2020). This part of the book tracks the migration of Sufis into the Deccan from biographical notices, and outlines their philosophy and spiritual beliefs. After these fourteenth-century saints passed away, Siddiqi postulates another vacuum, as their descendants failed to maintain the same standards as their forefathers (p. 72). One might consider, however, that what Siddiqi designates as a vacuum was possibly a gap in the record.
Texts produced from the fifteenth century onwards focused on origins and legitimizing histories, and the lack of contemporary evidence of some of these shaykhs could imply that these narratives were textualized for contextual reasons; it would be interesting to question why the genealogical narratives began to appear alongside land grants, and why there was no mention of the Junaydis, for example, before the rise of the Deccan sultanates.
Part III contains two previously unpublished chapters. The first deals with the hagiographical literature produced in the pre-Bahmani and Bahmani periods and the treatises of Gisudaraz which reflect his mystic thought. The second discusses the guidelines given by Gisudaraz to his disciples to traverse the path of Sufism. Part IV, which deals with religion and politics and discusses the Sufi-state relationship, contains the crux of Siddiqi’s theoretical contribution. He argues that in the early days of the Bahmani kingdom, ‘neither were the monarchs well-established nor the Ṣūfīs well-entrenched. Each was trying for a foothold among the masses and ended up leaning on each other’ (p. 250). Although this contradicts his earlier assertion that the early Deccani Chishtis followed the teachings of their north Indian masters and averred any connection with the state (pp. 37, 67), Siddiqi argues that in the early Gulbarga phase (1347–1422) the mulkī Sufis—a category not clearly defined, but usually applied to those who had migrated from north India and entrenched themselves in the Deccan—dominated social and political affairs. The final two chapters describe the later phase of Bahmani history, when Ahmad Shah (r. 1422–36) moved the capital to Bidar, and the ‘non-mulkī’ Sufis were given preference by the rulers. The rulers recruited migrants from overseas, especially the Iranian plateau, and fostered close relationships with the Niamatullahis. While north Indian culture flourished in the Gulbarga phase, and the most popular and powerful Sufis were migrants from the north, it was Persian and Shi’i influence which Siddiqi argues dominated the Bidar phase, as the important Sufis were Persian immigrants and even the architecture was influenced by Persian traditions.
Siddiqi explicitly connects the fortunes of the Sufis and Sultans, noting that with the establishment of the Bahmani kingdom, the Sufi movement in the Deccan gained new momentum as Sufis settled and worked at Gulbarga. Similarly, with the shifting of the capital to Bidar, ‘the new phase of the Ṣūfī-State relationship that commenced during the times of Aḥmad Shāh was entirely different in its scope and character because the members of the Niamatullahis family participated in political issues, accompanied the rulers on battlefields, supported the claim of one contender against another to the throne, supported the non-mulkīs against the mulkīs and even lost their lives in the process’ (p. 288). Further, ‘with the end of the Bahmani kingdom also declined the Ṣūfī institutions which had played a dynamic role at Gulbarga and Bidar’ (p. 316). This representation denies the independent agency of not only Sufis and the Sultans, but the society that surrounded them as well, as relationships—and their portrayal—were influenced by a number of contingent factors.
The most exciting part of the book are the appendices, which bring together material that will certainly fuel further research. Appendix A contains the titles of mystical treatises written by the Sufis of Gulbarga and Bidar during the period under study. Appendices B to F contain documents related to the Chishti, Junaydi, and Qadiri Sufis, including a noteworthy possible forgery. The documents are reproduced alongside transliterations and translations, making them easily accessible. The book includes useful maps of the Middle East, East Africa, and the subcontinent which illustrate the processes of migration and settlement. A number of charts are scattered throughout with details of the spiritual and family lineages of important shaykhs. The author has provided a helpful glossary, a segregated bibliography, and detailed indexes of names, subjects, and places. He also connects the narratives to the modern-day shrines and the families involved in their administration. A few repetitions and inconsistencies notwithstanding, the clear copies of documents alongside translations, and the neat and meticulous organization of information from various sources are a historian’s delight.
Pia Maria Malik is Assistant Professor (Guest Lecturer), St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, Delhi.