where he joined the Suhrawardi
khanqah
. He wrote numerous works and in
one of them, a
masnavi
called
Kanzu’r Rumuz
(‘The Treasure of Mysteries’), he
lavishes praise on the Suhrawardi shaykhs: Shihabuddin, Bahauddin Zakariya and
Sadruddin. It is in this work that he states his interest in
sama’
and considers it to
be a practice reserved exclusively for holy men. Besides the
masnavi
, he wrote
other numerous works like
Nuzhatu’ul arwah
(‘Delight of the Souls’), which
describes the spiritual path of the Sufis;
Tabatu’l Majalis
(‘Emotion of Mystic
Assemblies’), a prose work dealing with ethics;
Zadu’l Musafirin
(‘Provisions
for Travelers on the Sufi Path’), which evokes Sanai’s
Hadiqatu’l Haqiqa
and
Sadi’s
Gulistan
; a
Diwan
and some other pieces of writing which are known by
name but copies of which have not yet come to light.There is also a record of
his exchanging letters with a celebrated mystic of Tabriz, Saduddin Mahmud
Shabistari (d. 1320), on the topic of Sufism, the whole epistles set in the form of
questions and answers.When Shaykh Sadruddin died, he left Multan and settled
in Herat.
Among the descendants of Makhdum-i Jahaniyan of Uch was Shaykh
Samauddin (d. 1496). He left Uch after his initiation into the Sufi way and
traveled in Gujarat and Rajasthan, settling finally in Delhi during the reign
of Sultan Bahlul Lodi (1451-1489). He was highly respected by the Sultan
as well as his successor, Sultan Sikandar (1489-1517) who sought the Shaykh’s
blessings before his coronation. He authored a number of works of which
themost famous is a commentary on Iraqi’s
Lamaa’t
. His most famous disciple
was Shaykh Hamid bin Fazlullah (d. 1536) better known as Jamali Kanbo
Dihlawi. He was a great traveler and a great poet, whose
Siyarul ‘Arifin
(‘Biographies of the Gnostics’) contains a number of autobiographical
references. He was a prolific writer who left a voluminous
Diwan
and a
masnavi
,
Mihr wa Mah
, a love story with a mystic theme.
The Suhrawardis were successful in spreading their order not only in
