The written representations of a Central Asian Sufi shaykh: Ahmad ibn Mawlana Jalal al-din Khwajagi Kasani Makhdum-i-a`zam (d.1542).

Abstract

This study will examine the written works of Ah&dotbelow;mad ibn Mawlana Jalal al-Din Khwajagi Kasani, known as Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am, who lived in what is now Uzbekistan, dying in 1542 CE. Although he considered himself a part of a S&dotbelow;ufi order called the Khwajagan, the modern name, the Naqshbandiyya, based on the fourteenth-century figure, Baha' al-Din Naqshband (d. 1389), is often applied to his group by scholars of Sufism. Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am, the great master, wrote a number of treatises on topics related to Sufism; these written works form the basis of this research in order to reach more deeply into the thought of a single individual Central Asian shaykh. The dissertation has five parts. The first part, Chapter 1, is an introduction to the Khwajagan and Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am in a broad perspective. The second part, Chapter 2, looks briefly at both the codices containing the works and the text of the works, drawing upon variations in the texts to delimit two manuscript branches. This chapter also examines each of the known treatises of Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am, giving basic structures, topics, and a complete list of the individuals mentioned in each work. The third part, Chapter 3, looks at the treatises to draw out the group to which Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am belongs as presented in these works, and what groups one might read the works as suggesting were its critics during his time. The fourth part, Chapter 4, draws the practices that the works suggested formed the major practical paths of the group; these practices are not necessarily in line with what most people have come to understand the Naqshbandiyya as practicing and may expand how the group is interpreted during the sixteenth century and after. The fifth and final part of the dissertation is part of an effort to expand access to these works, which have never been published in their original Persian. In addition to various appendices listing where codices can be found, each of the two codices that were used as the basis for this research, one from each of the two manuscript branches, are included in typed form, with three indices each, Appendices VI and VII. Also included is a nineteenth-century commentary on Makhdum-i A`z&dotbelow;am's works found at the end of one of the codices in Tashkent, Appendix V.