Impressions from a Journey to the Deccan Author(s): Annemarie Schimmel Source: Die Welt des Islams, New Series,

Vol. 20, Issue 1/2 (1980), pp. 104-107 Published by: BRILL Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1570490 . Accessed: 01/09/2013 08:34
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IMPRESSIONS FROM A JOURNEY TO THE DECCAN

In October 1979 I had the opportunity to visit Poona, Madras, Hyderabad, Bidar, Gulbarga, and Bijapur as well as Patna. My experience showed that the Muslim minority in southern India very carefully preserves their cultural heritage, and I had the good fortune to be introduced not only to the well-known libraries such as the Khudabakhsh Library in Bankipore/Patna and the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad but also to some private and semi-private libraries which certainly deserve the interest of the Islamicists. These libraries, housed in the Madrasa-yi Muhammadiyya in Madras, the Sayeediya (Sa'idiyya) Library in Hyderabad, and in the homes of various individuals in Hyderabad, form part of the heirloom of one of the leading nawa'it families who came from Arabia in the Middle Ages, served in various capacities at the Muslim courts in South India (thus as qadis in Goa; after the annexion by the Portuguese of Goa in Bijapur, further at Mahmud Gawan's madrasa in Bidar), and finally settled partly in Madras, partly in the Nizam's Hyderabad. The role of some of these scholars for South Indian culture has been described by Prof. Mohd. Yousuf Kokan, Madras University, in his book Arabic and Persian in Carnatic (Madras 1974) and his Urdu work about Imam al-'ulama Qadi Badr ud-daula (1211/1792-1280/1863). This scholar served as qadi al-quddt of Carnatic State, helped the cause of Urdu in South India and, like some of his descendants, advocated female education. Dr. Kokan took me to the Madrasayi Muhammadiyya in Madras which is supervised by Dr. Muhammad Ghauth, a member of the Badr ud-daula family. Among the many thousands of manuscripts I saw during my all too short visit, is an autograph of 'Umar Suhrawardi of his 'Awdrif al-ma'drif; dated 608/1211-12; a fine copy of Gami's Laawd'ih,dated 889/1484, i.e., during the author's life, and a volume of Gami's matnawis with some fine miniatures on colored, gold sprinkled paper, written by Mir 'Ali al-katib. An autograph of Gami's gawdmi' al-baydn fi ta/sir al-qur'dn, dated 855/1451 in a fine MS (some pages missing) is preserved in the Sayeediyya library in Hyderabad. In Madras, a 17th century copy of the Diwan of Hafiz with lovely miniatures; a medical work, Ihtiyarat-i badi'i by 'All ibn Husain, dated 984/1576-77 with five interesting miniatures; a beautiful copy of Amir Husrau's Diwdn dated 830/1436-37; a Risala-yi musiqi by one Saif ud-din 'Abd al-Mu'min al-Bagdadi in a beautiful hand as well as a Koran, written in Kashmir in 1050/1640-41 in a superb tulut with blue and gold caught my eyes. The main treasures of the library consist of works on hadit, fiqh, history and all kinds of Arabic sciences, among them quite a number of unica and autographs. In the related Sayeediya Library, Janbagh Road, Hyderabad, I saw inter alia a copy of Ibn 'Asakir's Tdrih Dimasq in the handwriting of his son, dated 574/1178-79; al-Hatib al-Bagdadi's Kitdb al-asmd al-mubhama, dated 586/1190, and besides the autograph of Gami in his elegant hand autographs of at-Tahawi (808/1405-6) and Ibn Hagar al-'Asqalani (839/1435-36). Among the Persian MSS., the Kulliyat of Ni'mat Khan 'All, who participated in Aurangzeb's Deccan wars (d. 1709), was remarkable for its fine calligraphy and illumination; the Turcologist would enjoy a good copy of Nawa'i's Diwdn, dated 948/1541-42 and a Qissat al-anhiyd Turki, in Chagatay Turkish. (Incidentally, Chagatay MSS, particularly by the Moghul prince 'All Baht Azfari, 1758-1818, are also preserved in the University Library of Madras, where the prince spent the last years of his life after escaping from Delhi; his Wdqi'dt i-Azfari has been published by Madras University). For me, the amazingly great Die Welt des Islams, XX, 1-2

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number of good copies of Maulana Rumi's Matnawi was particularly interesting; a copy in six volumes with commentary, nicely calligraphed in Ahmadabad in 1152/ 1739-40 and numerous older copies with and without commentaries were kept in Madras and various places in Hyderabad (cf. also Kokan's Arabic and Persian... about the study of Rimi by various Carnatic authors). A superb manuscript in gubar script, dated 1085/1674-75 and written by Muhammad ibn 'All in Shiraz is in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum in Hyderabad where numerous masterpieces of Islamic calligraphy and Indo-Muslim art are preserved. The religious and cultural life of the Muslims in the former Hyderabad State, which was incorporated into the Indian Union in 1948, is marked by strong private activities on the educational sector. Besides the famous Osmania University (founded in 1918) with its immense campus, and the University of Hyderabad one finds still another University of al-Azhar type: the Gami'a Nizamiyya, founded in 1875 by Maulana Anwarullah Khan Fazilat Jung in the center of Hyderabad. Here, classical Islamic education is maintained; in an eight years course the boys are introduced to Koran recitation, sirat, Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and English, further History, Geography, Arithmetic and writing; the higher education, six years, comprises taqsir, fiqh, hadit, kalam, logic, history, and higher Arabic; finally the student can specialized in a two years' course in tafsir, hadit, fiqh, kaldm, literature or history. Lodging is available for 350 students; the library comprises ca. 25 000 books, including some 2000 manuscripts. A Departfment of ifta issues fatwds. The education is free, and the Arabic booklet offered to the visitor states that the basis of the finances is at-tawakkul 'ald Allah, 'trust in God'. The madrasa issues a journal and has its own publications; it executive committee is headed at present by Maulana Sayyid Qutbuddin. al-Husaini, a member of the Sabiriyya Chishtiyya and saggadanisin of the shrine of Sah Hamuf--a wise there are special spiritual teacher whose discourses deeply impressed me.-Besides, schools where children can learn Urdu in a short time and Muslim ladies have organized an educational society. The tradition of Sufism is still strong, a Sufi Academy has recently been founded in Hyderabad. We witnessed the 'urs at the tomb of Yusufain where the two saints are buried thanks to whose blessings Aurangzeb's army was able to conquer Golkonda; many scholar and poets, among the great Urdu poet Nawwab Mirza Dag (d. 1904) have found their last resting place in its precincts. Worthy of mention is also the enormous dome of Raju Qattal's tomb (late 17th century), important in history since in his dargdh the cheerful Abu'l-Hasan Tana Shah was living as a dervish before he was marri'ed to 'All Qutbshah's daughter to become the last king of Golkonda; he was then deposed by Aurangzeb in 1687. The tombs of the Qutbshahi kings in Golkonda are well kept, although their once so colorful tiles have almost completely fallen off. The style of calligraphy on the sarcophagi would deserve a special study. Among the outstanding events in Hyderabad was an evening in a private home with the recitation of Qasida-yi burda. Although not the whole long Arabic poem by BuSiri but only a small portion of it was recited, the various ways of calling blessings over the Prophet in alternating solo and chorus made this performance, which lasted about 80 minutes, highly interesting. Only recently a new Urdu verse translation of the Burda has been published in Hyderabad, along with the Arabic text and Gami's Persian verse translation. Besides Hyderabad, the centers of the old Deccani kingdoms offer the visitor a wide range of information: Gulbarga, where the Bahmanids began their rule in 1347; Bidar, their second residence after 1422 which was then overtaken by the Baridshahi shortly before 1500 (the Baridshahi tombs have some interesting calligraphy), and finally Bijapur, once a city with 1600 mosques, but now consisting of numerous ruins. Still, the city, to whose spiritual history Richard M. Eaton has recently devoted a useful study (Sufis of Bijapur, Princeton Univ. Press 1977) preserves some extremely beautiful and very well kept monuments: the simple, powerful Great Mosque from the mid-16th century excels by its gilded mihrdb; the Gol Gunbad, 'Ali 'Adil Shah's

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tomb (1656),which has the third largestdome in the world (externaldiameter43.9 m) offers a beautifulview of the city from its comfortableminarets,as does the small sanctuaryof the Chishti saint AminuddinA'la (d. 1675) on ShahpurHillock at the northernend of the city close to the formerlyimmenselyrich but now completely ruined trade center of Bijapur.Some interestingdocumentsare found in the dargah of the Shattarisaint HashimPir near the Gol Gunbad (d. 1645).The IbrahimRauza, Ibrahim'Adilshah's(d. 1626) charmingmausoleum,is excellentlykept; it is one of the most fascinatingIslamic buildings,reflecting,in a certain way, the cheerful disposition of the music-loving Ibrahim, maecenas of so many artists. Indeed, the Qutbshahis of Golkonda-Hyderabad and the 'Adilshahis of Bijapur around 1600 were as active on the cultural sector as their contemporaries Akbar and Jahangir in the Moghul north-west of India. Bidar, the second Bahmanid capital, was chosen for its strategic importance; its immense fort is built of the red stone typical for the area west of the Krishna river. Remarkable among the buildings is the fine octogonal mausoleum of the Ni'matullahi family who came to the Bahmani court shortly before 1430 and introduced Shia influences (which were to lead to constant frictions between the Shia 'foreigners' and the Sunni Deccanis and their Abyssinian soldiers). The tulut inscription on arabesques at the door of the mausoleum is masterful. The once marvellous inscriptions in tiles on and inside the Bahmani tombs are almost completely obliterated. The same is true of the great four-iwdn madrasa built by Mahmfid Gawan in 1472, where the rich tile-work has also completely disappeared. The tomb of this all-powerful minister, who was treacherously murdered in 1481, is situated outside the town, and is, contrary to the immense royal mausoleums with their huge domes and their rich decorations, covered only by a simple stone slab; the Nizams have finally put up a memorial stone at Mahmfd Gawan's tomb. Most interesting was Gulbarga where we reached just after the 'urs of Gesudaraz Bandanawaz, the major Chishti saint of the south, who died there at the age of about 100 years in 1422. The fair was still going on, and while the 'urs itself was attended, as I was told, by about 200.000 people, there were still several thousand thronging in the streets to the photographers' shops close to the shrine to have a group-photo taken near the sacred spot. We had the good fortune to listen to exquisite Persian qawwali in the residence of the saggddanisin, a very farsighted leader of his community, who had recently donated land and founded a college for Muslim girls; at the moment 83 girls were lucky enough to receive higher education.-The first dwelling place of Gesudaraz, where he stayed after coming from Delhi via Gujarat in 1413-is still intact, and so is the dargdh of Siraguddin Gunaidi, a saint from Peshawar who was instrumental in Hasan Gangu's ascension to the throne as 'Ala'uddin Bahman Shah and remained his spiritual adviser. In the courtyard of his mosque a tree has grown out of the miswak, tooth-brush, of Gesudaraz, and the visitor is given a twig of it for the sake of blessing. The dargdh, headed by a very spiritual saggadanisin, owns precious manuscripts of early Indian Sufi texts as well as several scrolls with the silsila of the order from Adam to the Adilshahi period. (Similar scrolls are kept in the shrine of Gesuidaraz; one, which reached only to the time of the Prophet, was about 90 feet long). Numerous other shrines with important manuscripts and documents for the history of Sufism are found in Gulbarga; there are further the grand tombs of the early Bahmanid rulers with fine stone work at the doors and windows. From the view point of Islamic art, however, the Great Mosque inside the fort is most array of its softly pointed arches and the immaculate white of its interior make it, in my opinion one of the most beautiful buildings in the Islamic world.'

important;built in 1367, it is the only India mosque without a courtyard,and the

Excellent photographs of this mosque in: Andreas Volwahsen, Islamisches Indien (Weltkulturen und Baukunst), Miinchen, Hirmer, 1969. Die Welt des Islams, XX, 1-2

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I have to thank numerous friends in Hyderabad for introducing me to the treasures of Muslim Deccani culture; besides Mr. and Mrs. Sewitz, Max Mueller Bhavan, who offered me generous hospitality during my stay, I have to thank particularly Dr. Ziauddin Ahmad Shakeb from the State Archives, who accompanied me through the Deccan; his knowledge of medieval Deccani history was as inspiring as his acquaintance with the Sufi tradition. Annemarie Schimmel

Die Welt des Islams, XX, 1-2

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