Saints A bonus story · any evening 16th–17th centuries

Shared Faith: the Sufi Saints

In Shivaji's Deccan, neighbours of different faiths often honoured the same holy places. Two Sufi traditions — and what we know for certain.

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One sky, two holy places

a dargah a temple the same sky
Neighbours. In Shivaji's Deccan a dargah and a temple could stand in the same village, visited by people of both faiths.

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The story

About 6 minutes, read aloud slowly · choose your language

This is a bonus story about something that may surprise you. In Shivaji's Deccan, Hindus and Muslims often lived side by side, and sometimes honoured the very same holy places. Tonight, three stories about Muslim saints — and we will tell you honestly which parts are certain, and which are tradition.

First, who were the Sufis? They were Muslim mystics who taught that the heart of religion is love — love of God, and kindness to people. When a Sufi saint died, his tomb, called a dargah, often became a place where people of every faith came to pray.

In the city of Ahmednagar lived a Sufi saint named Shah Sharif. A tradition says that Shivaji's grandparents, Maloji and Umabai, longed for a son, and prayed at this saint's tomb. When two sons were born to them, they named them after the saint: Shahaji and Sharifji. And Shahaji, of course, was Shivaji's father!

Is it true? Here we must be careful. The brothers' names are real — Shahaji did have a younger brother called Sharifji. But the story of the prayer comes from a book that great historians such as Jadunath Sarkar believed was written much later, and is not reliable. So we tell it as a tradition: a lovely one, but not a proven one.

The second story is about another Muslim saint linked to Shivaji's family — and this time we stand on firmer ground. About fifty kilometres south of Ahmednagar lies a town called Shrigonda; in those days it was called Chambhargonda. There lived Sheikh Muhammad, a Muslim saint who loved Vithoba of Pandharpur, just like the Varkari saints. An old land-grant, studied by the scholar R. C. Dhere, records that Maloji gave him land, built him a math — a home for prayer and teaching — and called him his guru.

Sheikh Muhammad wrote a long Marathi poem-book, the Yoga-sangram, finished in 1645. He taught that God is one, and is reached through love and a clean heart — not through empty show. His shrine still stands in the middle of Shrigonda, and the town honours him as its guardian saint. And today his palkhi, too, walks to Pandharpur for the great wari.

The third story is about Yakub Baba, whose dargah stands at Kelshi, a village on the Konkan coast near Dapoli. People there say that Shivaji met Yakub Baba and asked for his blessing, and that Shivaji began building his dargah, which his son Sambhaji later finished.

But here, as with Shah Sharif, we must be honest: no document from Shivaji's own time mentions it, and historians argue about whether it happened. It is a local tradition.

So what do we know for certain? We know that Muslims served Shivaji, some in very important places. One of the first commanders of his navy, Daulat Khan, was a Muslim. A commander named Siddi Hilal fought for him. (Tradition also remembers that Madari Mehtar, who helped him escape from Agra, as we saw on Day 16, was a Muslim.)

And we know something even more surprising, from a Mughal historian named Khafi Khan, who was no friend of Shivaji at all. He wrote that Shivaji made it a strict rule that his soldiers must never harm a mosque, a copy of the Quran, or a woman — and that whenever a copy of the Quran came into his hands, he treated it with respect and gave it to one of his Muslim followers. When even your enemy's historian praises you for something, it is probably true.

The two traditions may or may not have happened. But the true parts are just as beautiful: a grandfather who called a Muslim saint his guru, and a king who respected the holy places of every faith, and who worked side by side with people of every faith.

Goodnight — tonight's thought: respect for every faith, and honesty about every story.

Two traditions, honestly labelled — a grandfather's land-grant to a saint, on record — and one enemy historian's praise that is documented. Day 26, The Just King, returns to this.

Say it out loud

सूफीSufi
SOO-fee
a Muslim mystic
दर्गाdargah
DAR-gaa
a Sufi saint's tomb-shrine
शहा शरीफShah Sharif
SHAAH sha-REEF
the Sufi saint of Ahmednagar
शेख महंमदSheikh Muhammad
SHAYKH ma-HAM-mad
the saint of Shrigonda
श्रीगोंदाShrigonda
SHREE-gon-daa
his town; once Chambhargonda
याकूब बाबाYakub Baba
YAA-koob BAA-baa
the Sufi saint of Kelshi
दौलतखानDaulat Khan
DOW-lat KHAAN
an admiral of Shivaji's navy
खाफी खानKhafi Khan
KHAA-fee KHAAN
the Mughal historian
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For the grown-up reading aloud

What is history, what is tradition — and where to read more.

Tradition

Shah Sharif and the names

The story that Maloji and Umabai prayed at the tomb of Pir Shah Sharif of Ahmednagar and named their sons Shahaji and Sharifji after him comes from the Shiva Digvijay, regarded by Jadunath Sarkar and S. N. Sen as a later forgery. Sharifji himself is historical.

History

Sheikh Muhammad of Shrigonda

Sheikh Muhammad (often dated c. 1560–1650, following S. G. Tulpule; other scholars propose later dates) was a Marathi saint-poet from a Qadiri Sufi family, revered in the Varkari tradition. His Yoga-sangram is usually dated 1645. The scholar R. C. Dhere (Musalman Marathi Santkavi) describes a grant by Maloji Bhosale (dated in the mid-1590s; sources give 1595 or AH 1005, i.e. 1596–97) of land at Chambhargonde for his math, in which Maloji calls him his guru. We have not seen the original document. His samadhi shrine stands in Shrigonda, and his palkhi joins the Pandharpur wari (Vahira, his birthplace, also has a shrine and a palkhi). That Samarth Ramdas praised him is a tradition.

History

Chambhargonda in Shivaji's time

Jadunath Sarkar (Shivaji and His Times, chs. III and VIII, from Aurangzeb's letters, Kambu and the Dilkasha) places "Chamargunda (or Shrigunda)" 33 miles south of Ahmednagar, on the Mughal side of the frontier. In late March 1657 the Maratha leader Minaji Bhonsle, with 3,000 horse, raided its villages while Shivaji struck Junnar; on 28 April 1657 the Mughal officer Multafat Khan drove him off. In 1673 the Mughal general Bahadur Khan left his baggage at Chamargunda; his camp at Pedgaon, 8 miles south, grew into Bahadurgad, the camp to which Sambhaji was taken in 1689 (Day 29).

Legend

Maloji's buried treasure

An old family story, retold by Sarkar, says Maloji found pots of gold coins buried in his field and left the treasure with "an honest banker at Chamargunda" before raising his first troop of horsemen. It is a legend, not a record, but it suggests the storytellers thought of Chambhargonda as a market town where a trustworthy banker could be found.

Debated

Yakub Baba of Kelshi

Local tradition holds that Shivaji sought Yakub Baba's blessing and began his dargah at Kelshi (Dapoli), completed by Sambhaji. No contemporary document attests it, and the claim is disputed.

History

What is documented

The Mughal historian Khafi Khan (Muntakhab-ul-Lubab) records Shivaji's rule that his soldiers must not harm mosques, the Quran or women, and that Shivaji had any captured copy of the Quran handed respectfully to a Muslim follower. Muslims served Shivaji in senior roles, among them the naval commander Daulat Khan and the officer Siddi Hilal.

Fact & legend, kept honest

History
Khafi Khan's testimony on mosques, the Quran and women; Muslim officers such as Daulat Khan and Siddi Hilal; Shahaji's brother Sharifji; Sheikh Muhammad of Shrigonda and Maloji's land-grant for his math (as described by R. C. Dhere); the 1657 raid on the Chambhargonda villages.
Debated
Shivaji and Yakub Baba of Kelshi.
Tradition
The prayer at Shah Sharif's tomb and the naming of Shahaji and Sharifji; Ramdas's praise of Sheikh Muhammad. Legend: Maloji's buried treasure, kept with a Chambhargonda banker.

Sources:

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