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Husham al-Din Manikpuri, founder of the Hushamiya branch of the Bengali Chistiya tariqa, was a disciple of Nur Qutb-i Alam of Pandua. He was born in and died at Manikpur, Purnea. His sayings are compiled into a collection named Rafiqul Arifin (A Companion of the Gnostics). He told us,

"If you run towards the shadow you will never catch it, if you run towards the sun the shadow will follow you."

Ulugh Khan Jahan (d.1459) appears to be the principal historical character behind Bara Khan Gazi of the folklore Gazi Kalu Champabati. This is suggested by comparing the activities of Ulugh Khan Jahan in Barabazar near Jessore town - and in general in Southwest Bengal - with the legends of Bara Khan Gazi. Some modern authors imagine that Bara Khan Gazi was a son of Sikandar Shah Gazi who conquered Sylhet town with the blessings and help of Hazrat Shah Jalal in 1303/04. Ulugh Khan Jahan was a general of Sultan Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah (r.1437-1460) He is remembered for clearing up jungles, founding villages and towns and constructing numerous roads, bridges, tanks and mosques, including the famous Saithhgombuj mosque. One of his friends was Gobinda Thakur. Ulugh Khan is buried in Barisal. Gazi of the folklore is buried in Barabazar, Jessore or Bishgao, Habiganj (Sylhet). Legendary Zinda Gazi of Khulna and Muhurra (Mubarra? Pir Gazi Mubarak Ali) Gazi of 24 Pargana - who were also Friends of the Tigers - are credited with the clearing of jungles in those areas. According to others Bara Khan Gazi was a son of Pir Zafar Khan Gazi. Ismail Gazi was a general of Sultan Rukunuddin Barbak Shah (r.1460-1474) son of Nasir al-Din and possibly served one or more sultans after him. He fought with the king of Kamata in Dinajpur and lead his military operation against the king of Orissa from his base in Hooghly. Most believe that he is buried at Khontaduar, Rangpur. Some believe that his tomb was at Ghoraghat in Dinajpur. Legends say his head is burried at Khontaduar and the body at Mandaran, Hooghly. Many such confusions arise because of the meaning of the word dargah in Bengali. He was beheaded by the order of a sultan when the Hindu governor of Ghoraghat informed that he made a treaty with the king of Kamrup and was considering rebellion. According to Abdul Karim he followed the Shattari tariqa. Risalat as-Suhada, a Persian book written by Pir Muhammad Shattari (?1633) and found in the possession of the care-takers of the Khontaduar astana, related his story.

Five Great Organizers

Sharaf al-Din Ahmad Maneri (d.1381) was a son of Sharif al-Din Yahiya Maneri. He received his initial education in Sonargao Madrassa near Dhaka under Bukhara born sufi of the Qadrkhani tariqa and Hanbali Hadith teacher Abu Tawwama. Ahmad Maneri married the daughter of the teacher and had a son. Leaving his family at Sonargao he traveled to Delhi and became a murid of Nadjib al-Din Firdausi (d.1291). Then he vanished for several years in forests and hills. Finally he setteled in Bihar Sharif. He thus introduced the Firdusiya branch of the Kubraviya tariqa in Bengal. Until late colonial period Madariya and Burhaniya fakirs belonging to this sufi path were very important in the lives of ordinary Bengali Muslims. Burhaniyas were followers of Shah Sultan Hasan Muria Burhanah who settled at Baliadighi 25 miles west of Dinajpur town. In 1659 Shah Burhanah got a grant from Shah Suja, Mughal governor for Bengal, for any piece of free land in the country.

Kalu	Badr	Madar	Manik	Gazi

Shaikh Maneri also affected bhakti movements in many parts of India. Kabir Shah's sufi leneage came from Shaikh Maneri through Muzaffar Balkhi, Jamal Gojar and Makhdum Shaikh Bhik. Maneri's tomb is the Bara Darga in Bihar. Among his sayings we find

"Not all donkeys can bear the weight of the Messiah."

Shaikh Siraj al-Din Uthman (d.1357), popularly known as Akhi Siraj, was born in Badayun (Oudh). His mother was from Lakhnauti, the old capital of Bengal. As a young man he went to Delhi where he became a disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya, being the first Bengali student of Auliya. Akhi Siraj brought Chistiya khaneqah to Lakhnauti. He is buried in Gaur. His principal disciple was Ala al-Haq Qurishi. Father of Ala al-Haq was an immigrant from Lahore and was a descendant of Companion Khalid bin Walid. Relatives of Ala al-Haq occupied high government posts. But Shaikh Akhi used to be on horseback and Ala al-Haq used to walk behind Shaikh Akhi with a pot on his head. Ala al-Haq and his descendants kept close contact with the Ilyas Shahi sultans. In some sense they were the guardian saints of Bengal Sultanate.

Shaikh Jalal al-Din Tabrizi. Both ancient and modern got his stories confused because of several reasons. Maulana Jamali Kamboh's Siyar al-arifin, a sixteenth century compilation of sufi biographies, says Tabrizi left Baghdad after the death of Shaikh Shihab al-Din Omar (d.1234). It is believed Shaikh Bakhtiyar Kaki met Tabrizi while the latter was in Multan before coming to Bangla. Kaki came to India towards the end of Khwaja Moin al-Din Chistis's life (d.1236). This late date of his arrival however contradicts the identification of Shaikh Tabrizi with the Shaikh of SekaSubhodaya which gives Saka year 1124 (1202) as the year of the arrival of its Shaikh. The text says the Shaikh came to a part of Bangla before its conquest by Turkmen general Bhaktiar Khilgi. Lakkhan Sen was still ruling that part. The Shaikh got help from Lakkhan Sen and the local populace to found a "devasadana" for worshiping the "PradhanPurush". SekaSubhodaya is a Sankskrit hagiology on the Shaikh. It was originally written by Halayudh Misra, a court poet of Lakkhan Sen. The manuscript is from the 16th century. SekaSubhodaya says that the Shaikh was from the kingdom of Attava. Ata (Baba) sometime occurs among the names Turki sufis in Khwarazem and Kazakhistan, for example Kebir Ata. Atabegs (Father-commanders) were ruling Tabriz before the Khwarazami and Mongol conquests. Could the original Shaikh of SekaSubhodaya be somebody different, say Maolana Ata who is buried at Devikot in West Dinajpur, 33 miles northwest of Pandua? Or, could Attava originate from the name of the kingdom of Ita in Sylhet? Abdul Karim has shown conclusively that Jalal al-Din Tabrizi was not buried at Baish Hazari in Pandua. Lakhnawati's sultan Ali Mubarak Shah (r.1339-42) had a dream in which the Shaikh asked him to build a dargah there. In the words of a later historian, "We have given you Bangla, you build a dargah for us." Ali Mubarak never got Bangla. Rightful sultan of Bangla at that time was Fakhra, that is Fakhr al-Din Mubarak Shah (r.1339-49), Sultan of Sonargao. He was a friend of the sufis. Ali Mubarak was initially on the service of Sultan Muhammad Tuglok of Delhi. It could be that Ali Mubarak was trying to please the Jalaliya sufis. Abdul Karim suggested Tabrizi could be buried at Devtala (Deomahal), where according to Shaikh Ashraf Jahangir Simnani of Jaunpur (see below) some Jalaliya sufis are buried.

Shah Jalal Mujarrad was a "Turkistan jat Bankali" according to a 16th century descendant of one of his 313 (?363) companions. All his companions married Bengali women. He remained bachelor (Mujarrad). Moroccan traveler Ibn Batuta met him in 1345 a year before the death of Shah Jalal. Shah Jalal and Shaikh Jalal al-Din Tabrizi (also known as Shah Jalal) are considered the same, at present only by mainly Sylheti authors. However such a possibility cannot be ruled out from the information we have so far. After all, Ibn Batuta called Shah Jalal by the name Jalal al-Din Tabrizi. First, disciples of both Shaikhs were responsible for spreading Islam in various parts of Bangladesh, but early North Indian documents - except the Shattaris who had interest in Kamrup - talked about the vigorous activities of Jalal al-Din Tabrizi only, as if they did not know Shah Jalal. Second, it is said that Shah Jalal followed the sufi tariqa of Kazakhastani Turki Shaikh Ahmad al-Yasawi (d.1166) and Shaikh Jahangir Simnani, who stated (c.1414) that in Bengal there is no village where holy saints did not settle, was son of a grand-daughter of Shaikh al-Yasawi. The idea that Shaikh Tabrizi followed Suhrawardiya tariqa could originated from a misreading of his writing. Shaikh Simnani stated that seventy important disciples of Shaikh Sihab al-Din Suhrawardi were buried in Devgaon, some Suhrawardiyas are buried at Mahisun and that sufis of the Jalaliya tariqa are buried in at Devtala. Of course a sufi can belong to more than one tariqas and Suhrawardiya tariqa, before it fragmented, grew into a broad Islamic movement. The early Suhrawardiyas of Bengal may include followers of the founder Abu Najib Abd al-Qaher (d.1168) as well as his nephew Shihab al-Din Omar. Later Kubraviyas (Shaikh Kubra followed the tariqa of Abu Najib for sometime) and Indian Chistiyas (sprang up from the Afghan-Saka Chistiya-Maududiyas) completely overshadowed early Suhrawaridyas in Bengal, but not Shah Jalal's companions. Third, Shah Jalal's last name was Konayi and a person from Konya migrating east can easily took up the name Tabrizi if he spent sometime in Tabriz, the sufi tradition of which was more authentic and more practical as opposed to the intellectual sufism of Konya. Shaikh Kubra was a disciple of Baba Faraj Tabrizi who also taught Abu Najib. Thus Maolana Shams al-Din Tabrizi (d.c.1250), Maolana Rumi's friend, disciple and mentor, wrote about the sufis of Tabriz (Quoted from "Rumi" by Franklin D. Lewis), "there are people there in comparison to whom I am nothing." Among Shah Jalal's disciples were Pir Gorachand Raji (?Shah Hasan Raji) and Shah Paran. Sayyid Sadat Ali, an ancestor of Shaikh Sayyid Mir Nisar Ali Titu, was a disciple of Shah Hasan Raji. Titumir was a sufi of the Muhammadiya tariqa and was killed in opposing the colonial army. Dr. Muhammad Sahidullah's ancestors were hereditary caretakers of the tomb of Pir Gorachand Raji.

Shaikh Nur Qutb-i Alam (d.1459) was son and successor of Ala al-Haq. Nur Qutb-i Alam introduced Rikhta Style in Bengali, in which half of a line is in pure Persian and the other half is in Pure Bengali.

"Oh che kadam rue tu didam umat pagol voilu(n)"
"Oh what I did! glanced Your Face, I became senselessly mad"

Gobinda Thakur is known among the Muslims as Pir Ali Taher, his name being Muhammad Ali Taher. His earlier name was Gobinda Lal Ray. He was the founder of once famous PirAli community in Southwest Bengal. Even upto the middle of colonial period, many people in Southwest Bengal believed that he can be seen. The mysterious Govinda Ray who lectured Ramkrisna on Islam in 1866 was none other than he. It is from his legacy that the Tagore family got the appellation pirali brahman. It appears from an inscription that he possibly died the same year as his mentor Ulugh Khan Jahan. A disciple of Mahmud Tahir was Kamdev popularly known as Pir Thakurbar, whose tomb had a brahman thread wrapped around it. In some folklore Champabati, wife of Bara Khan Gazi appears as a sister of Kamdev Thakur.

Five local Seekers

Pir Jainti is buried in Magura. Tradition says that after he embraced Islam, many people embraced Islam through his preachings. Recently a scholar claimed Jainti is a corruption of Jain al-Din. Because of the district of Jainti Hills in the southeast corner of Kamrup and the line "Bondibo Zenda Pir Kama er Kuni" in Shaikh Faizullah's Satya Pir, I suspect he could be the missing Brahman mufti whose story was told in the Bahr al-Hayat. According to this story a Brahman from Kamrup visited Lakhnauti when Rukn al-Din Samarkandi (al-Amedi) (d.1218) was in Bengal. He wrote a book on yoga named Amritakunda (The Cistern of Necter) and gave it to Samarkandi. Bahr al-Hayat is a translation of this Amritkunda by Shattari saint Muhammad Gauth (d.1563). The story containing the Brahman from Assam was written by a disciple of the shaikh. The name of the Brahman was Kama or Kanama. Vikramjit Hasrat corrected it to Karnama. However originally it could be a kuniat from Kamrup or Kamru. Amritkunda is used for jinn hasel that is for capturing and controlling jinn or spirits. These are "the non-physical beings of the little world". According to traditional Islamic beliefs some of them are worshiped by many people as gods and incarnations because they enter the idols or symbols and provide spiritual sensation to the unsuspecting devotees in dreams and in reality.

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Shah Jadu (r.1415-32) was the greatest sultan of Bengal, although secular historians speak of the reign of Hussain Shah to be the golden period of Bengal. Even an Egyptian scholar called him the greatest Muslim ruler of his time. Jalal al-Din's declaration to be the caliph of Allah in 1427, indicates he was aware of the pathetic situation of the caliphate in the west. Jalal al-Din was a disciple of Nur Qutb-i Alam. He most probably belonged to a Kanshu family who came to Bengal in the service of or pushed by the Kushan. It is believed that Jalal al-Din is buried inside the Eklakhi Mausoleum at Pandua.

Vagyabanta Khondakar was a descendant of the Pal king Harischandra or a nephew of the king. His tomb known as Khondokarer dargah gave rise to the name of the village of Kondagram now absorved inside the city of Dakha.

Maolana Ismail Banarji(d.1970) used to lead the Eid prayers in Rajarbagh Police Line congregation, Dhaka. Son of a Brahman of Hooghly, he knew several languages, traveled many countries and was a well-known preacher.