Shah Abdullah alias Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlavi (1743–1824,

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

during the early 19th century. He was a master of the

Naqshbandi The Naqshbandi ( fa, نقشبندی)), Neqshebendi ( ku, نه‌قشه‌به‌ندی), and Nakşibendi (in Turkish) is a major Sunni order of Sufism. Its name is derived from Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari. Naqshbandi masters trace their ...

tradition and in other Sufi orders such as Chishti.

Biography

He was born in 1156 AH (1743 C.E.) in

Patiala Patiala () is a city in southeastern Punjab, India, Punjab, northwestern India. It is the fourth largest city in the state and is the administrative capital of Patiala district. Patiala is located around the ''Qila Mubarak, Patiala, Qila Mubarak ...

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising ...

, in present-day India. His father was Shah Abdul-Latif, a scholar and Sufi shaykh belonging to the

Qadri The Qadiriyya (), also transliterated Qādirīyah, ''Qadri'', ''Qadriya'', ''Kadri'', ''Elkadri'', ''Elkadry'', ''Aladray'', ''Alkadrie'', ''Adray'', ''Kadray'', ''Kadiri'', ''Qadiri'', ''Quadri'' or ''Qadri'' are members of the Sunni Qadiri ta ...

tariqah A tariqa (or ''tariqah''; ar, طريقة ') is a school or order of Sufism, or specifically a concept for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking ''haqiqa'', which translates as "ultimate truth". ...

. It is reported in his biographies that his father had a dream before his birth in which he saw Sayyadna

Ali ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, عَلِيّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب; 600 – 661 CE) was the last of four Rightly Guided Caliphs to rule Islam (r. 656 – 661) immediately after the death of Muhammad, and he was the first Shia Imam. ...

, who told him to name the baby on his name (''Ali''). After he grew up, he modified his own name to be Ghulam Ali (literally meaning slave of Ali, a common name in Indian Muslims today). Similarly, his mother had a dream in which she saw

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

, who told her to name the baby ''Abdullah''. Hence his real name is still known as Abdullah while his alias is Ghulam Ali. He is reported to have memorized the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...

in a single month's duration. In 1170 AH he came to Delhi to take the oath of allegiance to

Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan Mirzā Mazhar Jān-i Jānān ( ur, ), also known by his laqab Shamsuddīn Habībullāh (1699–1781), was a renowned Hanafi Maturidi Naqshbandī Sufi poet of Delhi, distinguished as one of the "four pillars of Urdu poetry."And Muhammad is Hi ...

, who was a famous Shaykh of

tariqah in Delhi at that time. After getting trained in the major Sufi orders including

for 15 years, he received complete Khilafat (spiritual Ijazah) from his Shaykh. He had many Khulafa (deputies) who spread the

Sufi order to a vast number of people in the whole Muslim world at that time. His Khulafa went to

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, Madinah and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. His famous khalifa was Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi, who had hundreds of thousands of followers in his lifetime, and many

's today in Turkey and nearby countries follow him. His chief deputy and successor was afiz Abu-Saeed-Ahmadi Faruqi Mujaddidi Naqshbandi (

) and his next successor was Hafiz Shah Ahmed Saeed Faruqi Mujaddidi, son of Hafiz Shah Abu Saeed (

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

) He is quoted to have said: "My Faid (spirituality) has reached far off countries. Our Halqa is held in Makkah and our Halqa is held in Madinah. Similarly our Halqa is held in

, Rome (now Turkey and Cyprus) and Maghrib (Parts of Europe and Africa facing Asia). And

is our parental home." He died on 22

Safar Ṣafar ( ar, صَفَر) also spelt as Safer in Turkish, is the second month of the lunar Islamic calendar. The Arabic word ''ṣafar'' means "travel, migration", corresponding to the pre-Islamic Arabian time period when muslims flee the oppr ...

1240 AH (15/16 October 1824) and was buried alongside his Shaykh's grave in Khanqah Mirja in

Writings

He wrote books, the best known being ''Mazhari'' in Persian, which is a complete biography of his shaykh

Shaheed. His other books are: * Edah-e-Tariqat * Ahwal-e-Buzurgaan * Risalah dar Tariqah Ba'yat wa Azkar * Risalah dar Tariqah Naqshband * Risalah Sitri Chand dar Ahwal-e-Shah-e-Naqshband * Risalah-e-Azkar * Risalah-e-Muraqbat * Risalah dar Aitarazat Shaykh Abdul-Haq bar Hazrat Mujaddid * Risalah Mashgooliyah * Sulook Raqia Naqshbandia * Makateeb Shareefa (collection of his letters) * Kamalat-e-Mazhariya * Malfoozat-e-Sharifa

Naqshbandi chainThe Golden Chains of Ghulam Ali Dehlavi
on maktabah.org website Published 3 April 2011, Retrieved 16 August 2018

Qadri chain

Extracted from Maqamat Mazhari by Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlavi # Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlavi #

# Muhammad Abid Sanami # Abdul Ahad # Muhammad Said #

Ahmed Sirhindi Aḥmad al-Fārūqī as-Sirhindī (1564-1624) was a South Asian Islamic scholar from Punjab, Hanafi jurist, and member of the Naqshbandī Sufi order. He has been described by some followers as a Mujaddid, meaning a “reviver", for his work in ...

# Abdul Ahad Faruqi # Shah Kamal Kethali # Shah Fuzail # Gada e Rahman Sani # Shamsuddin Arif # Gada e Rahman Awal # Shamsuddin Sehrai # Aqeel # Abdul Wahhab # Sharfuddin # Abdur Razzaq #

Abdul-Qadir Gilani ʿAbdul Qādir Gīlānī, ( ar, عبدالقادر الجيلاني, ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī; fa, ) known by admirers as Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū Muḥammad b. Abū Sāliḥ ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī al-Baḡdādī al-Ḥasanī al-Ḥusayn ...

Chishti chain

Extracted from Maqamat Mazhari by Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlavi # Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlvi #

# Muhammad Abid Sanami # Abdul Ahad Sirhindi # Muhammad Said #

# Abdul Ahad Faruqi # Ruknuddin #

Abdul Quddus Gangohi Abdul Quddus Gangohi (1456–1537) was an Indian Sufi scholar. Life He was a Sufi poet and Chisti shaykh. He belonged to the Sabiri branch of the Chishti silsila Silsila ( ar, سِلْسِلَة) is an Arabic word meaning ''chain'', '' ...

# Muhammad Arif # Ahmed Abdul Haq # Jalaluddin Panipati # Shamsuddin Turk # Alauddin Sabir Kaliyari #

Fariduddin Ganjshakar Farīd al-Dīn Masʿūd Ganj-i-Shakar ( ; – 7 May 1266) was a 13th-century Punjabi Sunni Muslim preacher and mystic, who was one of the most revered and distinguished Muslim mystics of the medieval period. He is known reverentially as B ...

# Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki #

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan Sijzī (1143–1236 CE), known more commonly as Muʿīn al-Dīn Chishtī or Moinuddin Chishti, or by the epithet Gharib Nawaz (),Blain Auer, "Chishtī Muʿīn al-Dīn Ḥasan", in: ''Encyclopaedia of Islam, TH ...

His Khulafa

His Khulafa were numerous and many of them were prominent Shaykhs at their times. Following is a list of his most prominent Khulafa as extracted from various sources. # Mawlana [ afiz Abu-Saeed-Ahmadi Faruqi Mujaddidi Naqshbandi, his successor (

) # Mawlana Hafiz Shah Ahmed Saeed Faruqi Mujaddidi, son of Hafiz Shah Abu Saeed (

) # Shah Rauf Ahmed Raaft Faruqi Mujaddidi Rampuri (Bhopal) # Mawlana Khalid al-Baghdadi al-Kurdi al-Rumi (

) # Mawlana Ismaeel Madani (

) # Mawlana Ghulam Mohiuddin Qusoori # Mawlana Bashartullah Behra'ichi # Mawlana Shah Gul Muhammad Ghaznavi (

) # Mawlana Muhammad Sharif (

Sirhind Sirhind-Fategarh is a town and a municipal council in the Fatehgarh Sahib district in the Indian state of Punjab. Demographics In the 2011 census Sirhind-Fatehgarh had a population of 60852. Males constituted 54% of the population and female ...

) # Mawlana Pir Muhammad (

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

) # Mawlana Jan Muhammad (

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safēd ...

) # Mawlana Muhammad Jan ( Makkah, d.1266 AH), whose Khulafa spread up to Turkey # Shah Saad'ullah Naqshbandi (Hyderabad)

References

External links

Maqamat Mazhari (Urdu translation) by Shah Ghulam Ali Dehlavi: Biography of his shaykh Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan
* 'Halate Mashayekhe Naqshbandiya Mujaddediya' written by mawlana muhammad hasan naqshbandi mujaddedi.first published march,1982.(1402hz).'Narinda khanka Sharif' {{Maturidi 1743 births 1824 deaths People from Patiala Hanafis Maturidis Naqshbandi order Indian Sufi saints Sufi teachers 18th-century Muslim scholars of Islam Indian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam