Abstract
The Mujaddidi family of Shor Bazaar, Kabul, is amongst the most celebrated and controversial Sufi lineages in Afghanistan. The Kabul Mujaddidis, who migrated from Sirhind to Afghanistan at the behest of Ahmad Shah Durrani, were direct descendants and caliphas of the Naqshbandi revivalist saint, Shaykh Ahmed Sirhindi (known as the Mujaddid, or reviver, of the 2nd Millennium). It is often argued that the Mujaddidi family were the principal carriers of Sirhindi’s revivalist teachings into Afghanistan, and transformed religious practice and identity in the region. However, their popular appeal, the structure of their networks, and their efforts at tajdid, or ‘renewal’, are not well understood.
Relying on the principal Kabul Mujaddidi biography, Umdat al-Maqamat as well as poetry, later biographies and local histories, this paper will explore how the first generations of the Mujaddidis in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, conceived of their project of tajdid, and the socio-religious function of their lineage. It will further examine how the shaykhs and students perceived the sources of their own authority, and relationship to state and broader society.
I argue that the Mujaddidis engaged their Naqshbandi lineage and Sirhindian epistemology to represent stability, authenticity, and regional unity in a time of political decentralization and turmoil. Problematizing Voll’s neo-Sufi hypothesis, the sources indicate that the Mujaddidi family endeavored to both solidify and expand the boundaries of sharia to incorporate local mystical practices from prevailing Sufi orders, as well as Alid beliefs. The Mujaddidi khaniqahs – extending from Kashgar to Bukhara to Sindh within two generations - formed a new network of public spaces which helped reassert Kabul’s position as a scholastic and religious center, drawing students from as far as Turkey, Kazan, and Bulgharia. The architecture of this transnational network, I will argue, provides insights into an emerging form of scholarly-saintly authority whose philosophy and institutions established the foundation for the revivalist movements of the early modern and modern Sunni Persianate world.
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