Nizam Ad Din Awliya

Translated from Persian, Morals for the Heart contains the conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya (d. 1325), a major Indian saint, as recorded by his disciple.

In these pages, superbly translated by Professor Bruce Lawrence, the reader comes face to face with God's Beloved. By the end, it will be clear why Amir Khusraw, the famous poet desciple, considered a chest of gold tankas a trifling price to pay for a pair of leather sandals belonging to the shaykh.

Translated from Persian, Morals for the Heart contains the conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya (d. 1325), a major Indian saint, as recorded by his disciple.

Publisher description

Sufism is a religion which emphasizes direct knowledge of the divine within each person, and meditation, music, song, and dance are seen as crucial spiritual strides toward attaining unity with God. Sufi paths of mysticism and devotion, motivated by Islamic ideals, are still chosen by men and women in countries from Morocco to China, and there are nearly one hundred orders around the world, eighty of which are present and thriving in the United States. The Chishti Sufi order has been the most widespread and popular of all Sufi traditions since the twelfth-century. Sufi Martyrs of Love offers a critical perspective on Western attitudes towards Islam and Sufism, clarifying its contemporary importance, both in the West and in traditional Sufi homelands. Finally, it provides access to the voices of Sufi authorities, through the translation of texts being offered in English for the first time.

‘As the soldier picked up his sword to slaughter, the Sufi stood up to confront the politics of the day with a song.’ The Book of Nizamuddin Aulia reveals the life and teachings of the most beloved and revered of medieval Sufi saints. Nizamuddin Aulia was born in 1236, in great poverty. He grew up in a tumultuous world and saw three dynasties and seven sultans wreak havoc over an entire nation in the name of religion. Staying away from the corridors of power, the mystic chose instead to dedicate his life to the Sufi vision of love and spiritual enlightenment and to serving the needs of the poor. If Muinuddin Chishti introduced Sufism to India, Nizamuddin helped spread his message across the country as the head of the Chishti Sufi order. Even today, his shrine in New Delhi, the Nizamuddin Dargah, draws countless devotees and visitors. In this rich, colourful book, Mehru Jaffer tells the story of Nizamuddin Aulia from man to saint, vividly bringing alive the history of the period.

Islam is often described as abstract, ascetic, and uniquely disengaged from the human body. Scott Kugle refutes this assertion in the first full study of Islamic mysticism as it relates to the human body. Examining Sufi conceptions of the body in religious writings from the late fifteenth through the nineteenth century, Kugle demonstrates that literature from this era often treated saints' physical bodies as sites of sacred power. Sufis and Saints' Bodies focuses on six important saints from Sufi communities in North Africa and South Asia. Kugle singles out a specific part of the body to which each saint is frequently associated in religious literature. The saints' bodies, Kugle argues, are treated as symbolic resources for generating religious meaning, communal solidarity, and the experience of sacred power. In each chapter, Kugle also features a particular theoretical problem, drawing methodologically from religious studies, anthropology, studies of gender and sexuality, theology, feminism, and philosophy. Bringing a new perspective to Islamic studies, Kugle shows how an important Islamic tradition integrated myriad understandings of the body in its nurturing role in the material, social, and spiritual realms.

Jamal Malik provides new insights into the social and intellectual history of the complex forms of cultural articulation among Muslims in South Asia from the seventh to twenty-first century, elaborating on various trends and tendencies in a highly plural setting.