A STUDY OF SOURCES OF THE SULTANATE WITH

EMPHASIS ON THE MALFUZAT AND THE PREMAKHYAN

TRADITIONS
INTRODUCTION

The inception of the second millennium CE marked the beginning of a radically new and
transformative phase in the history of India, which would last nearly as long as the millennium itself.
During virtually this entire period a good part of India was under the political and socio-cultural
dominance of invaders, first under Turks, then under Mughals, and finally under British.

These invaders stood in stark contrast to their earlier counterparts who had entered the subcontinent
through its porous borders over the whilom millennia and then, latter in time, merged indistinguishably
into the Indian socio-cultural milieu. This did not happen with Turks, Mughals or British. Although theirs
was a society of coexistence but they did not blend into a homogeneous social formation. The first phase
of this millennial history of foreign rule in India began with the invasion of India by Turks and the
establishment of the Delhi Sultanate.1

THE ISLAMIC WRITING TRADITIONS

The Delhi Sultanate, after its creation in 1210, lasted for almost two hundred years and for almost
half that period functioned as the sole bastion of Muslim power in the Indian subcontinent. The source
materials for the Delhi Sultanate — largely narrative in form and written in Persian, with the addition of
descriptions of India by external observers who wrote in Arabic — are markedly less satisfactory than, for
instance, either those available for the Mughal empire that followed it or those composed in the
contemporary Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt and Syria.2 According to Jackson, much of the literature of this
period focusses on the arrangement of narrative events, and consequently the reader is all often served up
a barely digestible repast of seemingly unconnected events.

Scholars divide the literary tradition of Islam into two broad sections- political and non-political. As
the name suggests, political literature is related to the political institutions that were functional under the
Sultanate rule. The works of writers befalling this category were written histories comprising a detailed
account of the remembrances of the past, and were authored either under the patronage of the ruler or
those associated with the court or polity. The non-political texts were individual literatures written by
people who were not directly associated with the court, like the Sufi saints and the bhaktas.

A plethora of literary historical works formed the part of the Muslim writing traditions that were in
practise throughout Central Asia. Some of these are Sira, Ansab, Maghazi, Tabaqat, Tariq, Malfuzat, and
Insha, among others. Sira, one of the earliest type of Muslim writing tradition, deals with history and
gives detailed information regarding the life of the Prophet. It also talks about the norms of jurisprudence
and gives preference to hadis, sunna and all other norms related to the practice of Prophet Muhammad.
1
Eraly, Abraham. 2014. The Age of Wrath : A History of the Delhi Sultanate. New Delhi: Viking, Penguin Books
[India].
2
Jackson, Peter. 2003. The Delhi Sultanate : A Political and Military History. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Ansab, on the other hand, is a genealogical study and gives extensive details on the family of the ruler or
the author himself. The next highly organised tradition of writing is that of Maghazi. It deals with the
collection of information in proper sequence with respect to time and space, providing accounts of
military history of a ruler or a military commander; once again with the description beginning from the
military expeditions of the Prophet Muhammad. The word Tabaqat is derived from the Arabic ‘tabaqa’
meaning section. The literary works that fall under this category narrate a longer time period of Islmaic
rule. Thus, the entire political regime is covered, with each and every section under a ruler being written
into a chapter. Tabaqat-i Nasiri, for instance, a text on the Islamic world — and the Mamluk Sultan
Iltutmish — by Minhaj-i-Siraj Juzjani, composed in 1260, covers specific actions of the slave rulers in
India. Tariq (lit. history) contains literary source scovering historical background from the creation of the
universe, the rise of Islam to the reign of the patron ruler. Another corpus of literary works was related to
the guidance that was directed from the state to the provincial bodies of administration. Known as the
Insha, literally meaning ‘later’, they give detailed accounts of specific centralised political institutions
with all units under its regular command. The understanding of this particular tradition of Islamic writing
leads one to the idea that authority was unidirectional with the central power being unquestionable, as is
depicted by the court orders, called farmans, to the offficials of the state. The remaining traditions of
Malfuzat3 and Premakhyans4 were not state sponsored and were, therefore, free from exaggerations of
political and militaristic achievements of the rulers, as will be evident from the discussion that follows.5

THE MALFUZAT TRADITION

The historical formation of Sufism in India is a process that has taken centuries, and its origins are
available to us only through a series of later reconstructions. From the time of Al Hujwiri 6 (d. 1074 CE),
the north-western cities of India were home to a number of Sufis, though Hujwiri is one of the few whose
writings have come down to us. Later tradition records that in the late twelfth century, when most of the
great Sufi orders began to crystalize in different parts of the Islamic world, the Chishti order first became
established in India. Although later authors such as Jami (d. 1492 CE) tell stories of the early Sufis of
Chisht, the first Chishtis themselves wrote nothing, nor do contemporary witnesses tell us anything of
their lives. The oral teachings of the Chishtis, as revealed in the "oral discourses", known popularly as
malfuzat literature, took on a canonical textual form that soon became the authoritative and normative
genre both for members of the order and for their lay followers.

It is widely believed that while the Chishtis did not express themselves in writing, they eventually
produced a broader and more sustained literary tradition than any other Sufi tradition. Neither Mu`in al-
Din Chishti (the founder of the Chishtiyya tradition) nor his two main successors, Qutb al- Din Bakhtiyar
Kaki (d. 1235) and Farid al- Din “Ganji Shakkar” wrote any books. However, the impact of the Chishti
3
Malfuzat is the Sufi tradition of history writing which emphasizes the relationship between the pir and his murid.
4
Premakhyans, composed in limited time period from the late 14th century to the mid-16th century and specifically
by Sufi poets, mostly in Hindavi, were versified romances which combined various local and traditional literary
practices.
5
Chaudhary, Azad. Notes from the lecture of 19, August 2021. On the Sources of Turkish History. History of India
IV
6
Al Hujwiri, revered as Data Ganj Bakhsh by Muslims of South Asia, was an 11th-century Persian Sunni Muslim
mystic, theologian, and preacher from Ghazna, who became famous for composing the Kashf al-maḥjūb
(lit. 'Unveiling of the Hidden'), which is considered the "earliest formal treatise" on Sufism in Persian.
master of the following generation, i.e. Nizam al- Din Awliya was so profound on his contemporaries that
a new genre of literature, the malfuzat emerged as a body of literary tradition. The authors of malfuzat
rewrote the master’s words heard in a session out of memory, sometimes helped by the master himself in
the writing process. In this, the writer inevitably exercised some kind of selection and interpretation, and
so produced a narrative structure depicting the Sufi teaching from a particular point of view. Sufi
hagiography insofar as it stressed sayings was basically an outgrowth of the hadith literature, which
collected the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. In India, the malfuzat quickly became a dominant
literary form for the transmission of Sufi teaching, so that later generations of Indian Sufis found it almost
indispensable to commit their discourses into this textual mould.

As far as the accuracy of the malfuzat as a written record is concerned, it may be regarded
conspicuously as a fairly precise, on linguistic grounds alone (as is pointed by the modern Iranian literary
critic Bahar), recording of the sayings of the Shaikh. But unfortunately, it does not shed any light on the
process of literary composition that gave the text its form. Furthermore, the Chishti malfuzat is
conveniently divided into “original” and “retrospective” works- the former comprising the sayings of
Nizam al- Din Awliya and those of his two disciples Nasir al- Din Mahmud Chiraghi Dihli (d. 1356) and
Burhan al- Din Ghari'b (d. 1337). These "original" texts, all written by literate and courtly disciples, may
be juxtaposed with another series of malfuzat purporting to be dictated by the principal Chishti Shaikhs to
their successors, illustrating the main line of evolving authority in the order known as the silsila. These
"retrospective" texts stressed the hagiographic mode of personal charisma and authority, while the
''original" ones focused on the teaching element consisting of practice and speculation; but all the
malfuzat texts made the person of the Sufi master an essential part of the teaching.7

Amir Hasan Sijzi Dihlawi, the deisciple of Nizam al- Din Awliya, undertook the task of recording
his teachings and conversations in a book called Fawaid Ul Fawad (Morals of the Heart) originally written in
the Persian language. Mir Khwurd, referring to him as ‘Amir Hasan Ala Sijzi’ wrote in praises of the
blessed author as-

…whose burning lyrics brought forth the fire of love from the flint of lovers'
hearts, whose pleasing verses conveyed solace to the hearts of the eloquent, and whose
invigorating subtleties are the sustenance of the discerning.8

Several years later after the composition of this work, a conversation took place between the Shaikh
and his devoted disciple, an anecdote which extends the role of malfuzat as a text that served a nearly
religious standard. Reading the first volume Nizam Awliya said in approval-

“You have written well, you have written like a dervish, and you have also given it a good
name. As the hadith conveys ethical and ritual norms to the Muslim community, so the malfuzat
now establish the principles of mysticism. In both cases the focus upon the personal source of the
teaching is an essential part of the disciple's ability to remember the teacher's words, to preserve
them for himself and others. In this way the Sufi malfuzat function as a parallel to the primary
canon of Islam, the Qur'an and hadith.”

7
Ernst, C. W. (2021). Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History, and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center by Carl W.
Ernst (2004–08-19). Oxford University Press; 2 edition (2004–08-19).
8
Ibid
 The author’s ability in evoking the presence of his pir, his skilled hand at writing 9, the close
relationship between the master and his disciple as well as the manner in which it expounded the Sufi
teaching is what made it a popular text of the contemporary times. Besides, the text, in contrast to the
dynastic chronicles, throws some light on aspects of social history as well.

Despite the attention and popularity that this particular corpus by Sijzi gained, the malfuzat tradition
that followed took an ‘uneven’ character. This was a result of change in the temperament between the
serious legal and ascetic emphasis of the Shaikh as well the immaturity of the compilers. This, for
instance, as many scholars agree, holds true for the hagiography of Nasir al- Din Mahmud (popularly
known as the Chirag-i Dihli) by Hamid Qalandar, who admitted to his own “preference for composing
mediocre Persian verse instead of meditating” 10 in his manuscript called Khayr al-majalis. It is also
argued that when the Chirag-i Dihli was shown sections of Hamid’s compilation, he remarked that they
were inaccurate and threw them away; also noting the unambiguous shortcomings of its author, Paul
Jackson comments that the author of Khayr al-majalis had “no real and genuine aptitude for mysticism”.11
Nonetheless, Carl Ernst and Annemarie Schimmel state that Hamid’s writings present and important link
in the recording of Chishti teachings; with the malfuzat texts now beginning to take on the canonical
function of acting as normative texts that reflected religious authority of the Shaikh and the individualist
piety of the author and the pir’s disciples.

Sayyid Jalal al-din Husayn Bukhari (1308–84), popularly known as Makhdum-i jahaniyan
Jahangasht, was the leading Shaikh of the Suhrawardi Sufi order and one of the most influential and
widely respected religious figures of his day. Jalal al-din Bukhari’s malfuzat are some of the earliest
extant Suhrawardi examples of this genre. They are also particularly valuable because there are a number
of compilations done by different disciples at different times in Jalal al-din’s life — including Khizanat
al-fawa'id al-jalaliya (Treasury of Jalalian morals) compiled by Ahmad Bhatti (1351-66), Khulasat al-
alfaz-i jami' al-ulum (Abstract of the words of the collector of knowledge compiled by 'Ala' al-din
Husayni in 1379 and 1380, Tuhfat al-sara'ir (Gift of secrets) compiled by Muhammad Ghaznawi in 1376,
among 4 others.12

A detailed inspection of the malfuzat text illuminate whole segments of the Indo-Muslim society.
Because of the authors’ tendencies to include almost everything that happens to or is done by the Shaikhs
in the presence of their disciples, these texts contain much incidental material on the various activities of
their masters. Thus, malfuzat can be used to explore such disparate issues as the culinary habits, economic
conditions, vernacular languages, topography, and even pastimes of particular periods and localities.
South Asian malfuzat record actual teaching sessions, including informal conversation, textual
explanation, mini- lectures, and other interactions between the Shaikh and his audience. Moreover, they
also often highlighted the relationship of the Shaikh with the Sultan. For instance, an anecdote features in
the malfuzat of Jalal al-din Bukhari, according to which in the late 1330s he was appointed by the ruler
Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–50) to the position of regional shaykh al-islam (head of the Sufi

9
Hasan Sijzi was a skilled court poet who wrote eloquently in Persian; he wrote several hundred lyric poems
(ghazals) and panegyric odes (qasids) addressed to the Sultans of Delhi.
10
Hamid, Qalandar, Khayr almajalis, p. 31.
11
Paul Jackson, "Khair Al-Majalis: An Examination," in Islam in India: Studies and Commentaries, vol. 2,
Religion and Religious Education, ed. Christian W. Troll (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt Ltd., 1985).
12
Steinfels, Amina. 2004. “His Master’s Voice: The Genre of Malfūẓāt in South Asian Sufism.” History of
Religions 44 (1): 56–69. https://doi.org/10.1086/426655.
Shaikhs). Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluq was notorious for his poor relations with the Sufi community
and to have been honoured by him with such a title, therefore, was something of a coup. But, Jalal al-din
gave up the position offered to him, and in doing so proved his own spiritual purity as well as his
obedience to his spiritual master rather than his temporal ruler. It is this presentation of the full range of
teaching activities, religious beliefs and relationship with polity that produces the variety of subject
matter, which makes malfuzat texts fascinating, confusing, and historically significant.

THE PREMAKHYANS

Another particularly remarkable development in Sufi circles was the popularity of Hindu themes in
Hindi (or Hindavi) — sometimes also Awadhi13 — literature and poetry (Sanskrit Mahakavyas and
Persian masnawis) written by Sufis from the fourteenth to the mid sixteenth century. The Premakhyans
were a ready reflection of the society and polity, both local administration and central authority, of this
time, and also provided insight into the vernacular perspective of life. This vernacular lifestyle is comes
specifically from those political fringes which were under the rule of the dominant political power. They
were in stark contrast to the otherwise dominant Arabic-Persian and Sanskrit forms of writing which
sought to represent the dominant political powers and social institutions. Besides, they involved the Sufi
principle of loves along with pleasure, pain, bereft and tragedy. The Premakhyans belonged to the
supressed powers which existed below the sovereign authority or dynasty.14

The most important premakhyans in chronological order were- Mulla Daud’s Chandayaan,
Narayana Das’s Chitai-Charita, Mrigavati of Shaikh Qutban of Jaunpur, Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s
Padmavat and Mir Manjhan Shattari’s Madhumalati.15After Madhumalati was composed in the 1540s,
there is no surviving evidence of any premakhyan; perhaps because of the consolidation and
centralisation of the Mughal polity under Akbar, which led to the decline of the provincial courts.
Moreover, Akbar and his successors were more interested in patronizing mannerist or rīti poetry and the
poetry devoted to Lord Krishna in Braj Bhāṣā, another premodern literary language hailing from the
region around Mathura.16 Of the prominent and known Premakhyans, the most renowned work has,
undisputedly, been that of Jayasi. Behl writes:

‘The Padmāvat offers us at first glance a grand mystical progress through a fantasy landscape and
an interior landscape of the self. The technical poetic language of the first half of the Padmāvat does
much more than create a fantasy landscape.’

It begins with the praise of the Almighty in creating the beautiful world, and goes on to convey
aesthetic pleasures through rasa and dhvani (suggestion) with the use of allegories and imageries. Jayasi
uses coded tantric, yogic, and bhakti devotional terms to suggest that the imaginary landscape on which

13
Waqiat-i Mushtaqi talks about these traditions in detail and how they were increasingly becoming the part of conversations
among the common masses.
14
Lecture by R. B. Azad Choudhary, ‘Premakhyans, vernacular literature, position of women, and Sufism and its teachings’,
21 September, 2021, recorded by Vibhuti Pathak; in History of India IV.
15
Debanjan. 2021. “Premakhyans and the Assimilation of the Classical Traditions in Medieval India.” Dhaara. March 28, 2021.
https://dhaaramagazine.in/2021/03/28/premakhyans-and-the-assimilation-of-the-classical-traditions-in-medieval-india/.
16
Behl, Aditya and Doniger, Wendy. 2016. Love’s Subtle Magic : An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379-1545. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Ratansen advances to attain Padmavati is an interior landscape, within which Ratansen crosses stages in
the symbolic geography of the body (imagined as a city) to reach the Sufi goal.

Chandayan, the fourteenth century text and the oldest in this genre, is another spectacular work
which was composed in Awadhi (although the script is Persian). Muzaffar Alam points out that, ‘among
the celebrated early Hindavi masnawis, verses from Mulla Da'ud's Chandayan, compiled in 1379, have
the distinction of being recited from the mosque pulpit of Delhi’. 17 Muntakhab al-Tawarikh of the
sixteenth century chronicler, Badauni, narrates the incident of a Maulana who, influenced by the austerity
of the Chandayan and its connection with the verses from the Quran, believed that it was a divine truth.
Chandayan is the story of a Rajput princess, Chanda, who elopes from the censorship of her parents,
Brahmanical shastric injunctions and general public with his lover, Lorik, an Ahir by caste. Although,
Mulla Daud inserts Sufi allegory in his work, Chandayan is wholly Indic. As, for instance, Lorik, who has
little hope of meeting his lover, lives in segregation as a Gorakhpanthi yogi for almost a year. Moreover,
when Chanda is bitten by a snake after escaping from her father's city, Lorik says that his condition is
worse than Ram's after the abduction of Sita, and he wants Ram and Hanuman to help him at this time,
for he has no one else. The integration of popular Hindu beliefs in the works Islamic masnawis of the
Sufis is the result of the ideology of wahadat al-wujud (Unity of Being or Unity in Multiplicity). ‘The
cultural ethos was at this level conducive to a greater interaction between different sects and the mutual
appreciation of apparently divergent thoughts and practices’.18

Mulla Daud was the pioneer of the genre of Premakhyans, and the later poets followed the tradition
set forth by him. Though the premakhyans were written in the Persian masnawi format, the narrative style
was centred on the aesthetics of the ‘rasa’, which is defined in Natyshastra by Bharata as the ‘flavour’ of
the poem derived from ‘vibhava, anubhava and vyabhicharibhava’. As a result, the cultivated reader
experiences the love displayed in the poem, as well as other lively feelings that the author is trying to
convey through his text.

“The moment that he saw Madhumālatī she possessed his heart completely. His soul bowed
down to her beauty. Seeing her lying in sweet sleep, the fire of love engulfed his body, consuming
him utterly, from top to toe. Like a lotus opening towards the sun, he blossomed as he saw her face.
Love from a past birth, like a green shoot, sprouted in the prince’s heart.”

These perfectly curated lines from Manjhan Shattari’s Madhumalati form a ready echo of the love
that the protagonist Manohar, prince of Kanaigiri, shows towards his beloved Madhumalati, princess of
the city of Maharas. Aditya Behl explains that ‘the image of a lover blossoming like a lotus’ when
Manohar behold the grace of the beloved’s face signifies ‘the opening up of a religious community
(ummah) to the spiritual truth taught by the Prophet Muhammad.’ He further states that Manohar becomes
aware of the reality of creation of this world by mystic love, through awareness of love. Just like
Madhumalati is described by Manjhan from head to toe, the prince is also consumed with fire from head
to toe. Therefore, if the beloved’s body is the representation of the ‘brilliant revelation of the divine’, then
Manohar signifies the ‘believer who witnesses this effulgent manifestation.’19

17
Muzaffar Alam. 2004. The Languages of Political Islam : India, 1200-1800. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
18
Ibid.
19
Behl, Aditya and Doniger, Wendy. 2016. Love’s Subtle Magic : An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379-1545. New York:
Oxford University Press.
 Since the Premakhyans were composed by the disciples of Shaikhs, they are filled with allegorical
instances of the Sufi quest for Divine Truth, as is evident from the discussion already. The fana or
unification of the devotee with his beloved or God is symbolised throughout these texts. The protagonist
overcomes the obstacles in the path between him and God, which symbolise the pervasive worldliness
that one must overcome according to the Sufi ideology. For example, ‘in Chandayan and Padmavat, the
heroes are torn between two women- representing the material and the spiritual milieus respectively. In
cases like Padmavat, the Jauhar becomes the symbol for fana, while the same is represented in the
Chandayan by the adoption of natha mendicancy by the protagonists, Chanda and Lorik. Once again, the
misery and tradegy that accompanies the lives of the characters in the Premakhyans are symbols of the
‘arduous journey a disciple embarks upon towards the quest for Truth.’20

CONCLUSION

Both of these literary traditions form an important part of Islamic and Sufi theology, polity and social life
of the contemporary times. Besides, both malfuzat and Premakhyans stand as a strong testimony to the
intermingling of Islamic and traditional Indian literary customs that are outrightly evident from the
symbols and elements used in these works. While the malfuzat tradition lays emphasis on the life of the
Sufi saint and the relationship (both closeness and detachment) that the Shaikh shared with his disciples,
the Emperor and the subjects of the kings; Premakhyans, on the other hand, present a worldview through
Sufi perspectives and their longing to unify with the God with vivid descriptions of love, agony and pain
portrayed through innumerable imageries and symbols. However, both these traditions of literature played
a crucial role in forming a popular identity of Sufism, propagating the teachings of the Quran
intermingled with popular local literary traditions. As a result, not only the auspicious personality and
instructions of the Shaikh were passed though the silsila after his death, but also the universal message of
Sufism was preserved for the posterity.

SUBMITTED BY-VIBHUTI PATHAK

SUBMITTED TO- AZAD SIR

20
Debanjan. 2021. “Premakhyans and the Assimilation of the Classical Traditions in Medieval India.” Dhaara. March 28, 2021.
https://dhaaramagazine.in/2021/03/28/premakhyans-and-the-assimilation-of-the-classical-traditions-in-medieval-india/.
ROLL NUMBER- 18
B.A. HONS. HISTORY