The Maizbhandari ( bn, মাইজভাণ্ডারী), or sometimes Maijbhandari ( ar, المائجبهندارية, al-māʾijbahandāryyah), order or ''

tariqa 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". ...

'' of

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

within

Sunni Islam Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagre ...

was founded in the late 19th century by the

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Sufi saint Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari Syed Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari ( ar, أحمد الله المائجبهنداري, bn, আহমদ উল্লাহ মাইজভাণ্ডারী; 14 January 1826 – 23 January 1906) was a Bengali Sufi saint and founder of the Maizbha ...

. It is the only Sufi order to have originated from within

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

, and, as a movement, it has continued to enjoy significant popularity in the 21st century.

Origins

The Maizbhandari order bases its tradition and draws its legitimacy from a saying of the tenth-century Sufi scholar

Ibn Arabi Ibn ʿArabī ( ar, ابن عربي, ; full name: , ; 1165–1240), nicknamed al-Qushayrī (, ) and Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn (, , 'Sultan of the Knowers'), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influenti ...

, who predicted that a great spiritual leader would be "born in China", and that he would speak the language of the country. Maizbhandari Sufis interpret Ibn Arabi's prophecy to mean

Chittagong Chittagong ( /ˈtʃɪt əˌɡɒŋ/ ''chit-uh-gong''; ctg, চিটাং; bn, চিটাগং), officially Chattogram ( bn, চট্টগ্রাম), is the second-largest city in Bangladesh after Dhaka and third largest city in B ...

, where the expansion of Islam had ended and where the Indian subcontinent butted up against "China" in the sense of the Chinese, or ancient

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...

, sphere of influence.

was born in

in 1828, which, according to Maizbhandari Sufis, was as foretold six hundred years earlier by Ibn Arabi. Since its 19th-century origins, the Maizbhandari movement has developed into "a powerful religious institution whose very popularity and influence defy any notions of marginality. It has been able to draw adherents from all sections of society, including the urban middle class", and been able to assert its reformist perspective on Islam, "while keeping in touch with the religious mainstream in Bengal", according to scholar Hans Harder.

Literary tradition

The Maizbhandari order has been responsible for "a sizeable textual output ...since the beginning of the twentieth century, including hagiographies and theological treaties, in the form of monographs, leaflets and journals". Maizbhandari

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

and hagiological writings have taken on various forms, including long treatises, ''fatwas'' or short articles (''prabandha''), and have been noted as a distinctly local tradition, with the "larger part" of the writings being independent works by writers hailing from either Chittagong or other areas of Eastern Bengal. One seminal work in the tradition is Aminul Haq Farhadabadi's (1866-1944) ''Tuḥfat al-aḫyār fī dafʿ šarārat al-šarār'' ("The precious gift of the good regarding the refutation of the evilness of the evil", 1906/7), which is a ''fatwa'' or legal opinion on the legitimacy of '' samāʿ'' and activities such as listening to music. Originally a mix of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

, the text was later circulated as a manuscript (''pũthi'') with a

translation. Another key work is Abdul Ghani Kanchanpuri's ''Āʾīna-i Bārī'' (‘Mirror of the Lord’), an

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

ghazal The ''ghazal'' ( ar, غَزَل, bn, গজল, Hindi-Urdu: /, fa, غزل, az, qəzəl, tr, gazel, tm, gazal, uz, gʻazal, gu, ગઝલ) is a form of amatory poem or ode, originating in Arabic poetry. A ghazal may be understood as a ...

s'', a form of

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

or ode. As an exposition of the Maizbhandari movement's theological foundations, it remains "the most comprehensive outline of Maijbhandari theology available to this day". A more concise account of Maizbhandari theology is Abdussalam Isapuri's ''Fuyūẓāt al-Raḥmāniyya fī ṭarīqat al-māʾiğbhand˙āriyya'', a Persian language work. Taken as a whole, the tradition has various literary sources, including medieval Islamic literature from Bengal, medieval Persian literature by Sufis in the courts of the former capitals Gaur, Pandua and

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

, and the literature of "pan-Sufic" authors such as

(d. 1240),

Jalal al-Din Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

(d. 1273),

Farid al-Din Attar Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1145 – c. 1221; fa, ابو حامد بن ابوبکر ابراهیم), better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn () and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur (, Attar means apothecary), was a PersianRitter, H. ( ...

(d. 1220), Mu'in al-Din Chishti (d. 1236) and the founder of the

Qadiriyya 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 ...

ṭarīqa,

Abd al-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 ...

(d. 1166). Maizbhandari thought has also gone on to influence other fields, with the movement's ethical precepts being re-interpreted in Bangladesh for applications in subject areas such as business management, where spiritual conceptions of self-purification have been translated into ethical models for building and sustaining trust with customers.

''Urs'' gatherings

The Maizbhandari order is also known for its ''urs'', an annual religious gathering purported to be at least the fifth largest congregation of

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

in the world. The event begins each year on the tenth day of the Bengali month of ''Magh'', and sees five to six hundred thousand people gather for several days of festivities centred around the performance of devotional music singing the praises of the Maizbhandari saints. The gatherings are attended by both Muslims and

Hindus Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

and some of the most famous Maizbhandari performers are Hindus.

Musical tradition

Partly born out of the popular and ecumenical nature of the Urs gatherings, the order's form spiritual listening and devotional music has become well-known and widespread, and the Maizbhandari tradition of spiritual songs has come to represent one of the largest corpuses of popular songs in Bengal. One early 20th-century Maizhbandari tradition musician,

Ramesh Shil Ramesh Shil (1877 – April 6, 1967) was a Bengali bard. He belonged to the class of bards, called ''Kabiyals'', who improvised songs in poetic contests evolved in Calcutta and its outskirts in the 18th and the 19th centuries, and also became kno ...

, composed about 350 Maizbhandari songs praising the order and

. These songs had been published in nine volumes titled ''Ashekmala'', ''Shantibhandar'', ''Muktir Darbar'', ''Nure Duniya'', ''Jibansathi'', ''Satyadarpan'', ''Bhandare Maula'', ''Manab Bandhu'' and ''Eshke Sirajia''.

Abdul Gafur Hali Abdul Gafur Hali (also known as Gafur Hali Maizbhanderi; 6 August 1929 – 21 December 2016) was a Bangladeshi folk lyricist, composer and singer of the Maizbhandari musical tradition. He was the first folk play author to use the Chittagonian la ...

, who died in 2016, was a late 20th-century musician of the genre who similarly wrote hundreds of songs and was known for his "extraordinary knowledge" of the tradition. Today, there is a catalogue over 10,000 Maizbhandari songs, many transmitted orally originally but now available on CD and video, making up a distinct genre of music in Bangladesh.

References

Citations

Sources

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