Aḥmad Sirhindī: A 21st-century update

Abstract

Abstract This article revises current understandings of the Indian Naqshbandī Shaykh, Aḥmad Sirhindī (d. 1624). It moves analytically beyond the pioneering and balanced scholarly accounts of Yohanan Friedmann and J.G.J. ter Haar, directly addressing the issues that Sirhindī's modern scholarly detractors have considered his most alarming statements and alleged exaggerated claims. Looking sociologically at Sirhindī's ashrāfī social context and his role as a sufi teacher the article demonstrates the logic of many of his shocking statements, some of which involve personal issues that have yet to be discussed in western scholarly literature. Finally, the so-called “controversy” generated between two perspectives of unity (waḥdat-i wujūd and waḥdat-i shuhūd) has been vastly overstated in the scholarly literature. The overall sufi consensus is that there is no real controversy. Indeed, both Ibn al-Ἁrabī and Sirhindī agree that these two valid modes of unity are simply two ways of perceiving the One.