enlightenment in turn came to India and received spiritual training under
their guidance.
The order found fertile soil in far away lands as well. One Maulana
Murad (d. 1720), who belonged to Bhukhara, came to India to receive
spiritual training under Khwaja Muhammad Masum. After completing this
spiritual course, he went to Damascus. There he found great support, not
only of the people but also of the king. Maulana Murad’s disciples established
a number of schools there.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Naqshbandi order in
India gained so many converts that it was able to exert a great influence in
the intellectual field and also improve its own internal organization.Amongst
its eminent followers were: ShahWaliullah (1703-1762), Khwaja Mir Dard
(1721-1785),Mirza Mazhar Jan-i Janan (1700-1781), ShahAbdulAziz (1746-
1824), Sayyed Ahmad Shahid (1786-1831), Shah Ghulam Ali (1743-1824)
and Maulana Khalid Kurdi (b. 1776).
ShahWaliullah made it his mission to work for the moral and spiritual
regeneration of Muslim society and succeeded in bringing about an
intellectual renaissance. Like Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi, Shah Waliullah
considered Islam to be a complete code of life, offering guidance at both
individual and social levels. Feeling that no one could realize his potential
unless he developed faith in God, he believed that Islam provided the best
opportunity for man’s self-realization. He believed that if man received
the right guidance, his spiritual evolution went on forever. Death to him
was only a turning point, and not the end of the journey. He thus developed
a comprehensive philosophy of the growth of the human soul throughmystical
experiences.
ShahWaliullah, being an authority on the
hadith
and
tafsir,
made a great
academic contribution. His most valued book
, Hujjat Allah al Balighah,
is
still widely studied. It has been translated, in part and also in its entirety,
