Sufi Satire

The impulse to collect saintly discourse is not unique to India nor represented solely by this Chishti master. There exists also a collection of impromptu reflections from Mawlana Jalal ad-din Rumi (d. 1273). A brief comparison highlights differences as much as similarities. The Fihi ma fihi (Signs of the Unseen) of Rumi was collected after his death by disciples. There is no dating for the selections, arranged in 71 sessions, some 12 pages long, others just a paragraph. The tone is apodictic, stressing how saintly behavior reflects the ability to engage those in power without being subdued to worldly principles or pursuits. The referents are often the urbane, wealthy and powerful of thirteenth century Anatolia, whether jurists and scholars, courtiers or kings, and one imagines they must have been among the primary audience for the published version.

By contrast, the Fawa’id al-fu’ad (Morals for the Heart) of Nizam ad-din was collected during his lifetime, written down with permission from the saint, and later reviewed – and, one learns, also corrected – by him. There are 188 sessions, sorted out into five fascicles, the shortest 17 meetings, the longest 67. They cover 14 years of the saint at the peak of his public prominence, from early 1308 to late 1322, that is, from his-mid 60s to late 70s. He died in 1325 at about 82 years of age.

What is most remarkable is the diversity of those who came to him. His khanqah or public audience hall stood near the capital of Delhi by the side of the river Jamuna; it’s cool refreshing breeze added to the serenity of the atmosphere. It comprised a big hall in the center, with small rooms on both sides. An old banyan tree stood in the courtyard, somewhat away from the center, yet its branches also provided shade to a part of the roof also. A veranda surrounded the courtyard, so a few men could sit there comfortably without obstructing the passage of others. Nearby was the kitchen.

​The Shaykh lived in a small room of wooden walls on the roof of the hall. During the day he took rest in one of the small rooms in the main building. A low wall ran around the roof, but on the side of the courtyard the wall was raised higher to provide shade for the Shaykh and his visitors as they sat talking into the morning hours.

​From early morning till late into the night, men from all walks of life and all strata of society—princes, nobles, officers, learned men but also illiterates, villagers and town folk—came to pay their respects to the Shaykh. There were persons who came for a short visit just to meet the Shaykh and to seek his blessings. There were others who lived in the khanqah permanently or temporarily and were of different categories, from elder followers to local servants. One of his senior disciples, Burhan ad-din Gharib, supervised the preparation and distribution of food in the kitchen and lived nearby.

What concerns us here is the element of satire that runs throughout the discourses of the Shaykh. Always it is aligned with self-criticism, embodied in the concept of adab, at once moral exactitude and literary pursuit. As Irfan Ahmad has aptly noted, adab in South Asia functions as literature, moral code, and cultivation of self for the collective good, so in Morals for Heart, we find a poet-saint, Amir Hasan Sijzi, recording the words of his master but doing so in language that mocks the very fame that make both the saint and his discourse so valued by visitors from near and far, from the upper and lower echelons of fourteenth century Delhi society. As if to discount his own claim to moral purity, Nizam ad-din turns to the topic of saintly fame in his initial discourse:

Discussion turned to THE MEN OF GOD and how they OUGHT TO REMAIN HIDDEN till God Almighty Himself has decided to reveal their identity. The master then told a short anecdote about Khwaja Abu'l-Hasan Nuri—may God illumine his grave. ‘O God,’ he once prayed, ‘hide me in Your country among Your servants.’ From the Beyond he heard a voice: ‘For God nothing is hidden, nor is God Himself ever hidden!’ In the same connection, the master went on to tell another story. ‘In the vicinity of Nagaur there lived a saint known as Hamid ad-din Suwali—may God grant him mercy and forgiveness. He was asked, 'How is it that after their death some of the saints are never remembered by name while in the case of others, their posthumous fame spreads to the end of the earth? What causes this disparity in the states of saints?' Hamid ad-din answered: 'He who strives to become famous during his lifetime—after he dies his name will be forgotten, while he who conceals his identity during his lifetime —after he dies his name will resound throughout the world!' 

The irony of this account is that neither of the saints whom Nizam ad-din mentions – Abu’l-Hasan Nuri or Hamid ad-din Suwali – have become famous after their demise. They are remembered but not lauded in the biographies that abound about Muslim Sufi masters. Almost as if to redress the balance between the lesser known and the well-known, the next two episodes discuss very famous saints, first Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir Jilani, arguably the most renowned and revered of all Sufi epigones, and Junayd Baghdadi, also esteemed among Sufis across time and space.

Yet the most frequent heroes in Morals for the Heart remain the lesser or nearly unknown saints, and again the value of these shout outs to the marginal and oft forgotten is precisely in the adab or moral self-cultivation they project, often as a corrective to Nizam ad-dinn himself. In one conversation, after elaborating on the condition of saints as they die or soon after their death, he remembered a person from his hometown, Badaun. We are only told his name, Ahmad, and that he resembled God’s most prized servants, the abdal or deputies:

About THE DEATH OF SAINTS, he told this story: ‘I had a friend in Badaun. His name was Ahmad. He was very upright and pious and possessed of the qualities of God's deputies (abdal). Though he was illiterate, every day he devoted himself to understanding juridical issues and their implementation. And he would ask everyone he met about them. When I was on my way to Delhi, he also came to Delhi. One day we met in public. As soon as he saw me, he began to pummel me with legal queries. Then he asked about the health of my mother. He already knew about the affliction from which she had been suffering, but no one had told him about her death. I took it on myself to tell him that my mother had been blessed with God's mercy, that is, she had died. 'May you live a long life' was his rejoinder. But then he became bothered and vexed. He began to cry.’ The master —may God remember him with favor—when he came to this point in the story also began to cry. So convulsed was he with tears that I could not make out what he was trying to say. In the midst of his weeping, these verses came upon his blessed tongue. I do not know whether they were connected to the story of that Ahmad or whether he recited them by association. The poem was this:

​After that he remarked, ‘Sometime later this Ahmad departed from the abode of this world. On the night after his death I saw him in a dream. Just as he had during his lifetime, he began asking me questions about the law and its application. 'Why are you asking me about this now?' I protested. 'While you were alive that was a commendable vocation, but surely not after death!' In response he asked me: 'Do you really think that the saints of God are dead?'‘ 

There are several extraordinary qualities about this anecdote. The saint applauds his friend who is illiterate yet alert to the intricacies of juridical reasoning that depend on deep textual knowledge. His friend Ahmad is also deeply attuned to human suffering, not least the health of the saint’s mother, and that conversation becomes so delicate and deeply moving that the saint dissolves in tears: he cannot say anything coherent or memorable apart from a poem, and that a poem that evinces pathos. Yet in the immediate aftermath of that meltdown, Nizam ad-din observes that Ahmad dies, and he has a dream of him, a dream in which this illiterate friend is still pummelling him with queries about the law. Nizam ad-din loses patience, and wonders out loud how this deceased holy man can still be concerned about everyday matters requiring legal knowledge and juridical insight. The query is a self-rebuke, a satire on saintly pretension, here framed as the moral of the entire story: ‘Do you really think that the saints of God are dead?’

Monitoring of self, striving for humility along with sanctity – also recurs in other anecdotes, involving both Nizam ad-din and his master, Farid ad-din. He tells this tale of self-rebuke about Farid ad-din. The conversation was about the display of deference necessary in all interaction between the master and disciple, even, and especially, in seeking spiritual perfection, and it prefigures the ‘ingratitude’ of Nizam ad-din himself revealed in a subsequent conversation:

Conversation turned to PROPER CONDUCT (of the disciple) TOWARD THE MASTER. ‘I have heard from the lips of Shaykh al-Islam Farid ad-din—may God sanctify his lofty secret,’ recalled the master, ‘that during his lifetime he himself had committed an act of arrogance toward his spiritual master, Shaykh Qutb ad-din—may God sanctify his lofty secret. And it happened in his way: 'Once I asked permission from the Shaykh (i.e., Qutb ad-din) to go into seclusion and perform an inverted fast for forty days (chilla). ‘There is no need to do this,’ replied Shaykh Qutb ad-din—may God sanctify his lofty secret; ‘it will give you notoriety. Moreover, no such practice has been transmitted from our masters.’ I replied: ‘The luminous moment (waqt) of God's presence is upon me, and I have no intention of seeking notoriety. I will not do this for the notoriety of it.’ Shaykh Qutb ad-din fell silent. After this, for the rest of my life, I was ashamed of what I had said, and I have repeatedly repented of my hasty, disrespectful reply.'' 

The subtlety of this disclosure of self-censorship is evident in the gap between ascetic desire – performing a fast upside down for 40 days – and personal comportment – yielding to the master on every point. It is almost as if that reverse rebuke from Farid ad-din anticipated the much larger rebuke that Nizam ad-din incurred, of special interest because it also involves praise for a saintly woman:

The recorder, Amir Hasan, always begins with his own act of submission, kissing the master’s feet:

​I obtained the benefit of kissing the master's feet. Conversation turned to REVEALING MIRACULOUS POWERS. ‘Before this time,’ he observed, ‘there lived in the locale of Indrapat a virtuous, elderly woman named Bibi Fatima Sam. I had seen her. She was a fine woman. She had memorized many verses pertaining to every circumstance of life. I especially remember these two lines from her:
 

​’Once I was in the presence of this Bibi Fatima,’ remarked the master. ‘She turned toward me and said, 'There is a man who has a daughter. If you want to marry that daughter, it would be a good match.' I replied to her as follows. 'Once I was with Shaykh al-Islam Farid ad-din—may God sanctify his lofty secret—and a yogin was also present at that time. Discussion focused on the fact that some children were born without any inclination for the spiritual life due to the fact that men did not know the proper time for sexual intercourse. At that point the yogin began to comment that there are twenty-nine or thirty days in each month. Every day has its special quality. For example, if a man makes love the first day of the month, such-and-such a child will be born; if on the second day, the offspring will be such-and-such, and he continued in this vein until he had given his estimate for every day of the month.

’When the yogin had finished speaking,’ said the master—may God remember him with favor—’I asked him to repeat what he had said about the influence of each day. As he detailed the qualities of each and every day, I memorized them, and then I said to that yogin, 'Listen carefully and note how well I have memorized what you said.' Shaykh Farid ad-din—may God sanctify his lofty secret—turned to me and said, 'Of these things about which you are inquiring there will never be an occasion for their use.' The master—may God remember him with favor—concluded: ‘When I had finished telling this story to Bibi Fatima, she remarked, 'Now I know what is your condition (concerning marriage).' Then she added, 'Indeed, you are right not to seek marriage with that young woman. I also have spoken with you just to please her father.'

The delight of this story is that the miraculous powers of this saintly woman are not to produce some dazzling display of transformation but to register the inner state of her interlocutor’s heart. She is an expert on intuition who also observes adab, correct behavior, both satisfying the father of a nubile daughter eager to marry the saint and affirming the saint’s disposition, due to his arrogance with his master, not to marry. The added element in the story is the intimate, almost matter-of-fact exchange with a yogin, who also attended the audience with Farid ad-din. There is no sense of unease or dispute about the yogin’s reproductive inventory, just on Nizam ad-din’s hubris in wanting to use it for his own advantage. There is never even a direct command to Nizam ad-din not to marry, though in fact he never does, becoming the only one of the formative Indian Chishti masha’ikh or saints to remain celibate.

Other instances of satire abound in Morals for the Heart. They include anecdotes that suggest inversion of value: the blind see, the illiterate read. Among those that highlight satire as insight is the following:

The master continued to speak of THE MIRACLES (karamat) OF SAINTS. ‘There was once a blind saint. An adversary came and sat down in front of him, wanting to test the saint. To himself he thought, 'Since this person is blind, there must also be some defect in his inner person!' Turning to the blind man, the adversary started to ask, 'What is the sign of a saint?' But as he was asking the question, a fly came and alighted on his nose. The man swatted it away. But it came back. He swatted it away again. A third time this happened, and in the mean while he managed to ask his question. 'The least of the signs of a saint,' replied the blind man, 'is that no fly alights on his nose!'‘ 

And then there is another anonymous person – pious and pure of heart - who, like Bibi Fatima, is graced with intuitive judgment:

The master then began to speak about THE DISCOURSE THAT ONE HEARS FROM SAINTLY AND GRACE-FILLED PERSONS, and how such discourse evokes a pleasure that none other can match. For when you hear the same discourse from someone else it does not evoke the taste for God. Who can match the person who speaks from a station in which he has been touched by the light of divine intuition?

​In this connection he told the following story. ‘There was a virtuous man full of grace. He was the prayer leader in a mosque. After prayer he would discourse on some of the dicta and spiritual states of saints. His words would bring comfort to those who heard him speak. Among those who came to hear him was a certain blind man; he, too, found solace in the prayer leader's words. One day the prayer leader was absent and the muezzin, whose job was to call the faithful to prayer, took the prayer leader's place. He also began to narrate stories of the saints and their spiritual states, stories of the same sort that the worshipers used to hear from the prayer leader. When the blind man heard the discourse of the muezzin, he asked: 'Who is this who is reporting the dicta of the saints and telling stories about them?' 'Today the prayer leader is absent,' they told him. 'The muezzin is substituting for him and telling his stories.' 'Humph!' retorted the blind man, 'I don't want to hear such lofty words from every ne'er do well!' As he was finishing this story, the master— may God remember him with favor—became teary-eyed. ‘He who does not have refined conduct cannot evoke the taste for God.’ And then some verses from Shaykh Sa`di graced his blessed lips:

While the above anecdote is more mockery than satire, it underscores yet again the importance of intent (niyya), whether in conducting prayer, telling stories of saints, or even orienting oneself to the Ka`ba, a ritual necessity for all observant Muslims before performing salat. Again, it is the illiterate who often instruct those blessed with natural sight, as in the following anecdote:

Concerning PRAYER AND THE SPIRITUAL AWARENESS (huzur) OF PRAYER LEADERS, the master observed that the indispensable precondition for spiritual awareness is that the prayer leader absorbs the meaning of what he prays in his heart.

After that he told about a certain Muslim who was among the disciples of Shaykh Baha ad-din Zakariya—may God have mercy upon him. ‘The disciple was known as Hasan Afghan. The man was a pillar of saintliness, so much so that Shaykh Baha ad-din Zakariya used to say: 'If tomorrow they ask me to bring forward one person from my household (dargah) as a representative to face judgment on behalf of all the others, I would select Hasan Afghan.' Once this same Hasan was passing through a town and arrived at the mosque in time for prayer. The Imam led the prayer and the people followed along. Khwaja Hasan also joined in. When the prayers were completed and the congregation had dispersed, he slowly went up to the Imam and said, 'Respected sir, you began the prayers and I fell in with you. You went from here to Delhi and bought some slaves, came back, then took the slaves to Khurasan, and afterward left there for Multan. I got my neck twisted trying to catch up with you. What has all this to do with prayer?!'

Then, to explain his saintliness further, the master said, ‘Once they were building a mosque in such-and-such a place. Khwaja Hasan arrived there. To the people constructing it he said, 'Be sure to make the prayer niche pointing to Mecca (mihrab) here, for orientation to the Ka`ba (qibla) is in this direction.' Having said this, he pointed to a particular spot. A scholar was present there. He disagreed, saying, 'No, orientation to the Ka`ba is in another direction.' Many words were exchanged between them. Finally, Khwaja Hasan said to the scholar, 'Face that direction which I indicated and note it well.' The scholar complied with the saint's demand and verified that the Ka`ba was indeed in the same direction that Khwaja Hasan had indicated.’

After that the master began to explain THE SPIRITUAL STATES OF KHWAJA HASAN. ‘He was illiterate. He could not read. People would come to him and, placing a piece of paper and a tablet before him, would begin to write some lines, a sample of poetry, a sample of prose, some in Arabic, some in Persian; of every sort they would write some lines. And in the midst of these lines they would include a single line from a verse of the Word of God. Then they would ask Khwaja Hasan, 'Of all these lines, which is from the Qur'an?' He would point to the Qur'anic verse, saying, 'It is this!' But you don't read the Qur'an,' they would protest. 'How can you tell that this is a Qur'anic verse?' He would reply: 'I see a light in this line that I do not see in the other lines of writing.'

Like others we have observed earlier, Khwaja Hasan is little known, and it is precisely his anonymity and his illiteracy that make him a moral compass for the imam or prayer leader, the qibla or direction for prayers, and also for the transcendent, translucent quality of the Qur’an. Even not knowing how to read, he could announce: ‘I see a light in this line [from the Qur’an] that I do not see in the other lines of writing.’

The ability to see for the blind has as its obverse, the inability to see for the saintly person fixated on his or her saintliness. We have already noted several instances of self-critique, but there is also one about the illustrious master – Hasan al-Basri- recounted in this anecdote laced with satire:

​After that the master remarked: ‘You should imagine everyone whom you see as better than yourself, even though someone may be obedient and someone else disobedient, since it might be that the obedience of the former is the last of his acts of obedience while the sinfulness of the latter is the last of his sinful acts.’ In this vein he told a story about Khwaja Hasan al-Basri—may God illumine his grave. ‘He used to say: 'I imagine everyone whom I see to be better than myself. But one day I met my own retribution, and this is how it came to pass. I saw an Ethiopian sitting by the edge of the river. There was a bottle next to him and every moment he was enjoying himself by drinking from that bottle. There was also a woman seated near him. The thought crossed my mind: 'At least I am better than him.' Just as I was thinking this, a boat began to sink in the river. Seven people were in that boat, and all seven began to drown. The Ethiopian immediately plunged into the river. He rescued six people. Then, turning to me, he said: 'O Hasan, you pull out the remaining one.' ‘I stood there stupefied,’ remarked Khwaja Hasan. ‘After that he said to me, 'In this bottle is water, and this woman seated next to me is my mother. It is to test you that I was sitting here. It appears that you see only the outer man.'

Not only does the anonymous Ethiopian oarsman display intuition, which we saw in earlier cases, but he also reverses the implicit racist bias of his saintly observer. It was not just the appearance of this man with a woman and a bottle in the middle of a river, but as an Ethiopian (or habshi) he was presumed to be in the lower, servile rungs of society, yet he showed himself to be not only moral and valiant but also a corrective for the saint, reminding him that the outer does not reveal the inner, and that he was sent by the One Beyond to test the saint in the Here and Now. What, of course, redeems Hasan al-Basri, as earlier Farid ad-din and Nizam ad-din had been redeemed, from their acts of arrogance is their ability to recall the moments and the exchanges in which they boasted and then to share with others the lesson learned from these exposures of their own lower, self-preening reflex.

While saintly miracles or Karamat, are constantly introduced, they are often couched in subtle exchanges that highlight the need to reserve rather than announce this distinct display of spiritual gymnastics. Consider the following episode where a saint’s decision on when to perform his miracle redoubles his status as one of God’s deputies or elect.

I obtained the benefit of kissing his feet (recalls Amir Hasan). I was experiencing some anxiety that day, for I suspected that someone had spoken ill of me to the master. When I obtained the benefit of sitting with him, the first words that came to his blessed lips were these: ‘If someone speaks ill of someone else, the latter has the intelligence to discern and he knows this much, whether what has been said is true or false, and also what was the motive of the speaker.’ When I heard his counsel, I became very happy. I submitted: ‘The firm hope of your servants lies in this, that the master's intuition is the arbiter (hakim) in all matters.’

​Conversation then turned to THE ABILITY OF SAINTS TO DISCLOSE MIRACLES. He told a story about Shaykh Sa`d ad-din Hamuya—upon whom be God's mercy. ‘He was a great saint, yet the ruler of that city had no confidence in the truth of his spiritual state. One day the ruler passed by the threshold of the Shaykh's hospice. He sent one of his retainers to deliver this message: 'Tell this Sufi lad to come out that I might cast an eye on him.' The retainer went in and delivered the ruler's message. The Shaykh took no heed of what he said; he was engrossed in his prayers. The retainer came out and reported what was going on. The ruler's anger subsided. He himself went into the Shaykh's hospice. When the Shaykh saw him enter, he got up and greeted the ruler cordially. The two sat down together in conversation.

​’Nearby there was a small orchard. Shaykh Sa`d ad-din signaled his servants to fetch some apples. When they were brought in, the Shaykh cut up a few apples. He and the ruler began eating the pieces. There remained on that tray a big apple. It occurred to the ruler: 'If this Shaykh has spiritual insight and miraculous powers, he will take this apple and offer it to me.' No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than the Shaykh reached for that apple, and picking it up, he turned to the ruler. 'Once when I was traveling,' he recalled, 'I came to a certain city. I saw a huge crowd milling about in that city. A juggler was performing for them. That juggler had an ass, and he had covered the ass's eyes with a blindfold. He then produced a ring in his hand, and gave that ring to one of the onlookers. Turning to the crowd, he announced: ‘This ass will find out who has the ring.’ Then that blindfolded ass began to move through the crowd. He sniffed everyone till he arrived in front of the man who had the ring. Then he stood still and would not budge. The juggler came and took the ring from that man.' When he had finished telling this story to the ruler, Shaykh Sa`d ad-din Hamuya remarked: 'If a man claims that he has the ability to perform miracles, he is equivalent to that ass, but if he doesn't make that claim and doesn't perform any miracle, someone might suppose that he doesn't possess spiritual insight. ' Having said this, he tossed the apple to that ruler!’ 

The power of this story is unleashed with the final tale of the juggler and the ass. Had the Shaykh simply tossed the apple to the ruler, he would have performed a karama but not undercut the narrow, egotistical intent of the ruler – to have the saint perform a miracle by tossing him the big apple. Through the extended story, the Shaykh is announcing to the ruler that he can perform such physical feats, but despite the glow of the big apple, its role is similar to the ring discovered by the blindfolded ass. It is literally an asinine trick but since there is a common expectation that saints should perform miracles, even the wary Shaykh must satisfy this egotistical urge, casting himself as an ass, the ruler as a mere onlooker, with God Himself a juggler.  

The dalliance and delight of Morals for the Heart comes through the multiple stories within stories, as well as the clinching verse that marks many of these lessons. Not all are outright jokes but the clever turn of phrase or the emotive response of the master makes them memorable. Above all, it is the constant reversal of roles that provides the leitmotif for much of the satire, and even though political excess is only dimly critiqued, the limits of rulers, such as the ruler wanting a karama in the previous anecdote, is often highlighted, even when the reproach is cast as a moral story. The final citation involves an historical person, Tughril Khan, a Turkic slave officer during the Delhi sultanate who ruled Bihar and later part of Bengal. In this anecdote it is the servant who teaches the master, providing fitting closure to this brief reiteration of the subtle art of Sufi satire, originating from Shaykh Nizam ad-din, then recast with edifying simplicity and narrative skill by his disciple-poet, Amir Hasan:

I obtained the benefit of kissing his feet [notes Hasan]. Conversation turned to THOSE EMPLOYED AS SERVANTS OF OTHERS. On his blessed lips came this statement: ‘One should be less preoccupied with servile chores than with attaining peace of mind.’ ​Then he told the following story. ‘In former days there was a man named Hamid. In his youth he lived in Delhi as the servant of Tughril, that same Tughril who late in life had himself crowned as king in Lukhnauti. In short, this Farid became the servant of that Tughril, and he remained in his service till one day, as he was waiting on Tughril, a form appeared to him. 'O Hamid,' it asked, 'why are you waiting on this man?' Having spoken, it disappeared. Hamid was puzzled about who this could be. Then a second time, as he was waiting on Tughril, again that form appeared and asked: 'O master Hamid, why are you waiting on this man?' Hamid remained perplexed. Then he saw this form a third time, and again it asked: 'O master Hamid, why are waiting on this man?' But this time Hamid rejoined: 'Why should I not wait on him, since I am his servant, he my master. I receive wages from him; why should I not wait on him?' Replied the form: 'You are wise, while he is ignorant. You are free, but he remains enslaved. You are righteous, he is corrupt.' Having spoken, it disappeared. When Hamid understood what the form had said, he went to the king and announced: 'If I owe you some service or have unpaid debts, tell me; for I will no longer be your servant.' 'What nonsense are you speaking?' retorted the king. 'You must be mad.' But Khwaja Hamid stood firm. 'No, I will no longer serve you. I have been blessed with contentment.’

When the master—may God remember him with favor—came to this point in the story, I interjected: ‘That form that appeared to Hamid was surely one of the men of the Unseen?’ ‘No,’ replied the master, ‘Whenever a man cleans his inner self of defilements, he will see many things of this sort. A myriad of such qualities exist in each of us, but on account of despicable deeds they remain occluded. Only when the inner self becomes completely translucent can a person recognize the many, many wonders within himself.’  And then on his blessed lips came this verse:

Making the inner self translucent through constant self-monitoring is the goal of the master’s discourse, whether in verse or satire or both: the scent of the musk pod persists, at once alluring and elusive. 

Citations

The definition of satire by David Mamet can be found at Masterclass.com, 20 November 2020. The depiction of Shaykh Nizam ad-dinin’s khanqah is set forth in

in K.A. Nizami, Introduction to Nizam ad-din Awliya: Morals for the Heart (Conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi). Translated and annotated by Bruce B. Lawrence. New York: Paulist Press, 1992. Reissued with a new foreword by Zia Inayat-Khan. Manchester, UK: Beacon Books, 2017. All the subsequent citations are from this rendition of Morals for the Heart. They are, in sequence: 82-83, 135, 108-09, 354-55, 125, 168, 90-91, 162, 228-29, 309-10. For the Rumi reference, see Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jalalad-din Rumi, Translated and introduced by W.M. Thackston, Jr. (Putney, Vermont: Threshold Books, 1996). For general information about Sufi orders and some of the saints mentioned in Morals for the Heart, there is no better source than the classic, Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC; University of North Carolina Press, 1975, reissued 2011 with a new foreword by Carl W. Ernst.) And for a sustained inquiry on adab as both literature and moral deportment, see the lucid, broad gauged analysis of Irfan Ahmad, Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace (Chapel Hill, NC; University of North Carolina Press, 2017), especially 67-70.