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Hazrat Fazl Ahmad Peshawari: Excavating the Bukhara-Peshawar Nexus after Nadir Shah
Abstract
Following the death of Nadir Shah (d. 1747), the political landscape of the Turkestan, Khurasan, and Hindustan underwent dramatic transformations. While decentralized states gradually emerged at Khiva, Khoqand, and Bukhara, Ahmad Shah Durrani began carving out an empire from Nadir Shah’s eastern provinces. This turbulent period also witnessed the proliferation of an intricate network of shrines, khāneqāhs, and madāris associated with the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufi order, which had originated several generations earlier with Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1624), the widely revered yet controversial Hindustani mystic. This paper focuses on the efforts of one of the Mujaddidi scholars-saints who emerged in this period, Mian Fazl Ahmad Masumi, popularly known as Hazrat Jeo Peshawari, and the networks developed by his sons and khulafa. Hazrat Jeo forged a network of institutions spanning from Punjab and Ghazni to Khoqand and Bukhara, attracting a range of adherents from ascetics to local rulers (including Mahmud Shah Durrani, the Akhund of Swat, and the rulers of at least five khanates in Turkestan). This paper will focus on the parallel development of his networks in the Peshawar Valley, Khoqand, and Bukhara after his death.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Afghanistan
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries