Person · Sufi shaikh & author

ʿAlī Hujwīrī

Also known as Data Ganj Bakhsh, Ali Hujwiri, Data Sahib, Hujwiri

Date

c. 1009 – 1072

Function

Religious institution & practice

Tradition

Kashf al-Mahjub

Confidence

Established / referenced

Worth knowing

Muʿīnuddīn Chishtī is said to have spent forty days at the tomb before going on to Ajmer, and to have called him Ganj Bakhsh, bestower of treasure — which is the name Lahore uses. A shrine that predates the Chishti order by a century became its point of entry.

Connections (2)

• Silsila lineageMuʿīnuddīn Chishtī

  Muʿīnuddīn is said to have spent forty days at ʿAlī Hujwīrī's tomb in Lahore before going on to Ajmer, and to have given him the title Ganj Bakhsh. A shrine that predated the Chishti order by a century became the point at which it entered India. Hujwīrī's Kashf al-Mahjūb was the first Persian treatise on Sufism written in the subcontinent, so the Chishtis entered India through the grave of the man who had first explained the subject in writing.

• Monastic foundationData Darbār, Lahore

  ʿAlī Hujwīrī settled at Lahore under the Ghaznavids and wrote the Kashf al-Mahjūb, the first Persian treatise on Sufism composed in the subcontinent. His is the oldest of the great South Asian dargahs, and its langar has fed several thousand people a day for centuries. Muʿīnuddīn Chishtī is said to have sat forty days at the tomb before going on to Ajmer, and to have called him Ganj Bakhsh, which is the name Lahore still uses.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Ali Hujwiri”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.

• Wikipedia — Ali Hujwiri