Hazrath syed hashim peer dastageer r.a Bijapur
ABOUT US
Hazrath Hazhimpeer who represents the glorious tradition of Quadri-Shuttari Sufi order came to Bijapur on specific instructions from the Prophet of Islam. He was brought up in a highly scholastic atmosphere under the influence of Sayedna Vajhuddin Hussaini Gujrati, popularly known as Haider Ali Sani. It was during the rule of Ibrahim Adil Shah-II when Hazrath Hashimpeer arrived in Bijapur and it was his influence on the Adil Shahi dynasty that transformed the dynasty which was following Un-Islamic and Heretic practices.
Hashim Pir was born in 1576-77 in the family of a wealthy judge of Ahmedabad, Qazi Burhan al-Din, whose holdings included a village in’am worth Rs. 4,000. At a very early point in his life Hashim became a murid of the famous Shattari mystic Wajih al-Din ‘Alawi. But Wajih al-Din died when Hashim was only fourteen years of age, and thereafter the boy fell under the spiritual discipleship of one of Wajih al-Din’s older murids, Shah ‘Adb Allah Husaini. From this time Hashim, in the best of earlier Shattari traditions, seems to have become increasingly ascetic. When his father died in 1605-06 he gave away the family fortune including the village in in’am, and at some time after that he left Ahemdabad, inexplicably, for Bijapur.
We hear nothing of Hashim Pir’s activities in Bijapur until the end of Ibrahim II’s reign, when events following a pilgrimage to Mecca brought him into close contact with the court. He was returning from the hajj in 1626-27 when the ship he was travelling on was captured off the Konkan Coast by the Portuguese, who interned the ship’s cargo and passengers in Goa. When this news reached the Bijapur court the aging Ibrahim II wrote a number of letters to the Portuguese governor of Goa requesting the release of Hashim Pir and the other prisoners. Although Ibrahim II’s motives for this intervention were not recorded, it is likely that the sultan wished to show his support for a man already widely venerated as a living saint in the capital city. Whatever the cause of Ibrahim II’s intervention, his efforts were successful, and Hashim Pir was soon allowed to return to the capital.
Although we do not know what Hashim’s relations with the court had been before this episode, it is clear that they became quite close after it. When Ibrahim II died the following year (1627), Muhammad ‘Adil Shah continued the tradition of maintaining close links with the Sufi. Zubairi wrote that both Ibrahim II and Muhammad had a great deal of belief in Hashim’s spiritual power and that Muhammad declared him to be superior to all other Sufis of Bijapur, even depending on Hashim’s council on important matters of state. One oft-related tradition that can be traced to Sultan Muhammad’s time related that when Muhammad fell seriously ill in 1646 Hashim Pir gave the sultan ten years of his life in return for the favor extended to the Sufi twenty earlier by Ibrahim II. Hashim thus died in 1646, and Muhammad in 1656. Whether or not Muhammad ‘Adil Shah believed that his life had been prolonged in his way, the sultan’s deep attachment to the Sufi is suggested by his having constructed his own huge mausoleum, the famous Gol Gumbad, directly behind Hashim Pir’s dargah in the extreme eastern end of the city.
What were the reasons for the close contacts between Hashim Pir and Muhammad ‘Adil Shah? One cause doubtless lies in Ibrahim II’s intervention in securing Hashim’s release from the Portuguese, an event that to some extent must have ingratiated the Sufi to the court. A more profound cause has its roots on the immense popularity that Hashim enjoyed throughout his long life in Bijapur. One of his khalifas wrote that Hashim had enlisted 5,500 affiliates into the outer circle of his following at Bijapur. “The basis of his popularity was suggested by another of his Khalifas:
Every day a great number of men would come to that guide [Hashim] declaring that their poverty and unfortunate state had caused them to come to his service in want to relief. He would ask them if they wanted employment as domestic servants. Some said they would work for such-and-such a noble; others said they would work for anybody who would look after their welfare. And the [Hashim Pir] would express his willingness to write them letters of recommendation for employment…. And in every possible way he would take their pleas and stories to the king, the wazir, or to whomever was necessary for the task.”
Even after allowing for the malfuzat-writer’s possible exaggeration on this point, the tenor of this passage clearly reveals a Sufi functioning in a broker’s role between the court and unemployed commoners of this lower classes. Hashim Pir’s support of the court, symbolized by his allowing the sultan to visit his khanaqah, can this be seen as a mutually advantageous contract between the court and the Sufi. What the monarch gained in having Hashim’s support was a deeping of his authority among commoners already spiritually affiliated with the Sufi. What Hashim gained was access to nobles through whom he could improve the material welfare of his many followers.
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