Hamid was appointed the Qazi of Nagaur and served in this position for 3
years. He did not find the service inwardly rewarding, so he left for Baghdad,
where he met Shaykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi and became his disciple. It
was also there that he met Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki, who later
became a renowned Sufi of the Chishti order. Hamiduddin and Qutbuddin
became friends. Under the influence of Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki,
Hamiduddin started taking an interest in
sama’
, thereby arousing the
opposition of the
ulama
. He was also very close to Qutbuddin’s famous
disciple, Nizamuddin Auliya.When the latter died, it was Qazi Hamiduddin
Nagauri who invested his successor Baba Farid, by presenting him with the
relics of his Shaykh.
Qazi Hamiduddin was a writer with several works to his credit.
Lawaih
(‘Flashes of Light’) was an important Sufi text, but it did not survive the
ravages of time. It is attested that Baba Farid used to study it with his
disciples. Three other works of Hamiduddin have, however, survived and
these are:
‘Ishqiyya
,
Tawali’ al Shumus
(‘Points Where the Suns Rise’), and
Risala Min Kalam
.
In
‘Ishqiyya,
Qazi Hamiduddin explains the relationship between the
Lover and the Beloved, saying that they appear to be two separate identities,
but are in fact one. Here the Beloved is God and the Sufi the Lover. To
become one with his Beloved the Sufi must annihilate his ego. The more
successful he is in this, the greater the possibility of his achieving the ultimate
goal. He goes on to say that love is the source of everything that exists and
both the Lover and the Beloved mirror each other. In short, the essence of
all existing beings is God.
Tawali’ al Shumus
is an exposition of God’s names. According to him,
God’s greatest name is
Huwa
or He and he says that
Huwa
or He indicates
His eternal nature—holy and free from decline and fall, explaining this
