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Abstract
This article reflects upon the role of intra-, inter-, and trans-regional networks in the making of distinctive regional formations in the long fifteenth century. Through its focus on Gujarat, a region often seen as lying at the intersection of both maritime and overland trade routes, the article highlights the historical conjunctures that gave expressions to a distinctive regional identity in the fifteenth century. Using court-chronicles and texts produced by Sufi disciples and descendants in Gujarat, the article argues that by employing “convergence” as a conceptual tool, it becomes possible to explain how the processes of movement and circulation of people, goods, and ideas that had defined much of the Indian subcontinent resulted in creating distinct regional formations. Such distinctiveness was marked overtime through state-making, the use of specific vernaculars, the success of specific spiritual fraternities and other forms of cultural production. Locating historical convergences further allows us to break away from a linear understanding of the emergence of regional formations in the wake of the disintegration of the Delhi Sultanate, to instead focus on the simultaneity and continuity of larger political and socio-cultural processes.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the organizers of the 2022 workshop on “Courts of North India and Deccan (c. 1347-1562)” at the University of Pennsylvania, Daud Ali and Ayesha Sheth, as well as all the participants for a robust discussion on regional formations. Thanks to Daud and Ayesha also for their patience and support in guiding this special issue. The comments of the two anonymous referees were incredibly helpful in fleshing out many details in this article and I’m grateful for their close engagement. Finally, thanks to Pankaj Jha for his questions, comments, and encouragement.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Francesca Orsini and Samira Sheikh, After Timur Left: Culture and Circulation in Fifteenth-Century North India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014). Also see chapters in Keelan Overton, Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020).
2. For a recent historical and interdisciplinary approach to thinking about ‘regions’ with Sindh as an example, see ‘Sindh: Towards the Philology of a Place’, Special Issue edited by Manan Ahmed Asif, Philological Encounters, 7 (2022) <doi: https://doi-org.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/10.1163/24519197-12340081>.
3. Samira Sheikh, Forging a Region: Sultans, Traders, and Pilgrims in Gujarat, 1200–1500 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010).
4. Sheikh, 6.
5. See, for instance, Aparna Kapadia, ‘Imagining Region in Late Colonial India: Jhaverchand Meghani and the Construction of Saurashtra (1921–47)’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 81(2022): 541–60. <doi:10.1017/S0021911822000080>. Also, Edward Simpson and Aparna Kapadia, eds, The Idea of Gujarat: History, Ethnography and Text (New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2010).
6. See, for instance, the discussion in Sheikh, 67-71.
7. Muḥammad Qāsim, Mirqāt al-wuṣūl ila Allah wa al-Rasūl, edited with an introduction by Nisar Ahmad Ansari (New Delhi: Kitab Bhawan, 2004), 146. Maḥmūd ibn Sa ‘īd Īrajī, Tuḥfat al-majālis, Ms. 1231, Pir Mohammed Shah Library and Research Institute, Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
8. In his text, Muhammad Qasim noted how his grandfather had reasoned with Ahmad Khattu to not leave Khattu upon his spiritual mentor Baba Ishaq’s death. See Qasim, 69.
9. Qasim, 176, 192–6. Also see Iraji, assemblies 13, 14 (due to the barely visible pagination in the digital copy of the Tuḥfat, I will refer to the specific assembly in the text within which a particular reference occurs).
10. Iraji, assembly 38. The author noted most of his personal details between assemblies 35 and 43.
11. For a detailed discussion on the differences in style, genre, and authorial choice in the two texts, see Jyoti Gulati Balachandran, Narrative Pasts: The Making of a Muslim Community in Gujarat, c. 1400-1650 (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2020), 74-83.
12. Qasim, 4–7. Also see Iraji, assembly 74.
13. Qasim, 10, 13, 16, 128, 139, 142, passim; Iraji, assemblies 1, 5, 7, 60, 61, passim.
14. Qasim, 17-19.
15. For an extensive discussion on this aspect, see Z. A. Desai, Malfuz Literature as a Source of Political, Social and Cultural History of Gujarat and Rajasthan (Patna: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, 1991).
16. Qasim, 7; Iraji, assembly 59. For details on Sayyid Jalal al-Din Bukhari and the creation of a textual tradition around his life and travels, see Amina Steinfels, Knowledge before Action: Islamic Learning and Sufi Practice in the Life of Sayyid Jalal al-Din Bukhari Makhdum-i Jahaniyan (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2012).
17. Qasim, 183-185.
18. Iraji, assemblies 23, 24, 25; Qasim, 170-1.
19. Iraji, assembly 24.
20. The books included Mizān, Hazār alfāẓ, Maṣādir, Panj-Ganj. Ahmad Khattu’s religious education is discussed in chapter four of the Mirqāt.
21. Qasim, 67.
22. For an extensive discussion on Ahmad Khattu’s time in Samarqand, see the fourteenth chapter in Qasim, 187-223. In Tuḥfat, see assemblies 3, 4, 22, 44 and 45.
23. Iraji, assembly no. 44. Also see assembly 45 for another episode of Ahmad Khattu’s interactions with the ‘ulamā’ of Samarqand.
24. Qasim, 205.
25. Iraji, assembly 3.
26. Qasim, 210.
27. Qasim, 211.
28. Qasim, 233-34.
29. Qasim, 119. For other references to the Chishti shaykhs, also see Iraji, assemblies 18 and 25.
30. Iraji, preface.
31. Some of the elite individuals we encounter include Amir ‘Ainak, Malik Saif al-mulk, Ilyas Khwaja, Sayyid ‘Ali Hamadani and Abu Sa‘id.
32. Iraji, assembly 1.
33. Iraji, assemblies 60, 62. Qasim, 7-8.
34. For a discussion on Zafar Khan’s family’s history and their allegiance to Sultan Firuz Shah, see Sheikh, Forging a Region, pp. 70-71, 197-98.
35. Iraji, assembly 14.
36. For the larger context, see Sunil Kumar, ‘Transitions in the Relationship between Political Elites and Sufis: The 13th and 14th Century Delhi Sultanate’, in State Formation and Social Integration in Pre-modern South and Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study of Asian Society, ed. by Karashima Noboru and Hirosue Masashi (Tokyo: Toyo Bunko, 2017), 203–38.
37. Shāh Muḥammad ‘Alī Sāmānī, Siyar-i Muḥammadī, ed. with an Urdu translation by Sayyid Shah Nazir Ahmad Qadiri Sikandarpuri (Gulbarga: Sayyid Muhammad Gisu Daraz Academy, 1979), 26.
38. Qasim, 224–7.
39. For events and circumstances that marked Zafar Khan’s presence in Gujarat leading to his assumption of the royal title, see Sikandar ibn Muḥammad alias Manjhū ibn Akbar, Mir’āt-i-Sikandarī (composition c. 1611), edited and with introduction and notes by S.C. Misra and M.L. Rahman (Baroda, India: Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Department of History, 1961), 20–5.
40. According to Digby, the other reason was that some members of Zafar Khan’s entourage were displeased with the prospect of Gisudaraz’s long-term presence in Gujarat. Simon Digby, “Before Timur Came: Provincialization of the Delhi Sultanate through the Fourteenth Century”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 47, no. 3 (2004): 328.
41. Sikandar Manjhu, 10-11. For a discussion on the importance of Jalal al-Din Husayn Bukhari for his descendants in Gujarat as narrativized in sixteenth and seventeenth century Suhrawardi texts, see Balachandran, Narrative Pasts, 150-55.
42. This is not to suggest that Ahmad Khattu was unable to exercise any autonomy. There are examples of threats by Ahmad Khattu to leave Gujarat that were easily placated by Zafar Khan, now Sultan Muzaffar Shah, who was eager to settle disputes regarding financial support to Ahmad Khattu’s residence. On Gisudaraz, see Richard Eaton, ‘Muhammad Gisu Daraz (1321-1422): Muslim piety and State Authority’, in idem., A Social History of the Deccan, 1300-1761: Eight Indian Lives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 33-58. Also see Pia Malik, ‘Disentangling the Chishti Silsilah: The Husaini Tariqa and the Jawami’ al-kalim’, M. Phil dissertation, Delhi University, 2016.
43. Hāshim ibn Shāh Kamāl al-Dīn Bukhārī Riẓawī Qutbī, Ṣaḥā’if al-sādāt, Ms. 2540, National Archives, New Delhi, 17-18.
44. Hashim Qutbi, Ṣaḥā’if al-sādāt, 27.
45. See in particular Muḥammad Ṣafī al-Dīn Ja‘far ‘Badr-i ‘Ālam’ Ṣafā, Ṣad Ḥikāyat, No. 624, Shaykh Ahmad Khattu Roza Library, Sarkhej, Gujarat. Also see the discussion in Balachandran, 164-191.
46. Qasim, 41-3.
47. Iraji, assembly 8. For another episode of Ahmad Shah visiting Ahmad Khattu, see assembly 17.
48. Sikandar Manjhu, 34.
49. Iraji, assembly 73; Qasim dedicated the last chapter to Ahmad Khattu’s deteriorating health and death. See pp. 232-237.
50. Aparna Kapadia, ‘The Last Cakravartin? The Gujarat Sultan as ‘Universal King’ in Fifteenth Century Sanskrit Poetry’, Medieval History Journal 16 (2013): 63–88.
51. Ḥāmid ibn Faẓlullāh Jamālī. Siyar al-‘ārifīn, translated into Urdu by Muhammad Ayub Qadiri (Lahore: Markaz-i Urdu Board, 1976).
52. Jamali refers to Ahmad Khattu as Shaykh Wajih al-Din Ahmad Gujarati. Jamali, 262-3.
53. Jamali, 223-38.
54. Simon Digby, ‘Dreams and Reminiscences of Dattu Sarvani, a Sixteenth-Century Indo-Afghan Soldier’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2 (1965): 52–80 and 178–94.
55. Digby, ‘Dreams and Reminiscences’, 71-3.
56. In the context of Gujarat, see Farhat Hasan, State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western India, c. 1572–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
57. Abū al-Faẓl ‘Allāmī, The Ā’īn-i Akbarī, translated into English by Colonel H.S. Jarrett; Corrected and further annotated by Sir J.N. Sarkar (Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2001 reprint, first published 1927), Vol. II: 247-48. ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddis Dehlawī, Akhbār al-akhyār, translated into Urdu by Maulana Muhammad Fazil (Karachi: Madina Publishing Company, n.d.).
58. Dehlawi, 339-49.
59. Fazl, II:247-8.
60. Aḥmad Khattu, Al-risāla al-Aḥmadiyya fi manaqib al-mashaykh al-maghribiyya, No. 733, Shaykh Ahmad Khattu Roza Library, Sarkhej, Gujarat. Modern copy from the original manuscript prepared by Ahmed Eusufji Patel (n.d.).
61. Some of these genealogies are preserved in Hashim Qutbi, Ṣaḥā’if al-sādāt.
62. Richard T. Mortel, ‘Madrasas in Mecca during the Medieval Period: A Descriptive Study Based on Literary Sources’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 60 (1997): 236–52.
63. ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad al-Makkī al-Āṣafī Ḥājjīal-Dabīr’ Ulughkhānī, Ẓafar al-wālih bi Muẓaffar wa ālihi, edited by E. Denison Ross as An Arabic History of Gujarat, London: John Murray for Government of India, vol.1, 131, 313-14. For a discussion on how Ulughkhani and his text were a product of increasingly close scholarly connections between Gujarat and the Red Sea region, see Jyoti Balachandran, “Counterpoint: Reassessing Ulughkhānī’s Arabic history of Gujarat”, Études Asiatiques, 74:1 (2020): 137-162.
64. Guy Burak, ‘Between Istanbul and Gujarat: Descriptions of Mecca in the Sixteenth-century Indian Ocean’, Muqarnas 34 (2017): 287–320.