Person · Firdausi Sufi saint · India
Sharafuddin Manerī
Also known as Sharafuddin Maneri — Bihar Sufi network
The 13-14 century Firdausi Sufi Sharafuddin Yahya Maneri (1263-1381) at Bihar Sharif in Nalanda district, Bihar — the founder of the eastern Indian Firdausi silsila (sub-branch of the Suhrawardi order). Yahya Maneri spent 40 years in a cave retreat at Bihar Sharif, during which his correspondence with his disciples was collected as the Maktubat-i-Sadi (Hundred Letters) — the foundational Sufi theological text of Bihar. His works also include the Maktubat-i-Dusadi (Two Hundred Letters), Maktubat-i-Bisti (Twenty Letters), and the Fawaid-i-Rukni (Benefits of Rukn, his teacher). Maneri's spiritual network produced the Firdausi lineage that spread through Bihar, Bengal and Odisha. His tomb at Maner Sharif (30 km from Patna) and the Chhoti Dargah of his son Shah Daulat (built 1619 under Jahangir patronage) remain active Sufi pilgrimages. The annual Urs each 7 Shawwal draws over 500,000 pilgrims.
- Date
- 1263–1381
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Condition
- historical person + shrine/text tradition
- River basin
- Ganga
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 25.200, 85.520
About the place
Placed at Bihar Sharif, where he taught and is buried, and which became the centre of the Firdausi order in eastern India.
Connections (1)
- Succession in timeNālandā mahāvihāra
Sharafuddin Manerī's khānqāh at Bihar Sharīf stands about twelve kilometres from Nālandā, which had been destroyed some hundred and fifty years earlier. A Sufi teaching centre grew on the same ground, in the same district, teaching a different religion out of the same manuscript-and-master arrangement — the second great learning tradition of south Bihar occupying the space the first had left.
On these journeys
Sources
Maktubat-i Sadi; Sufi studies of Bihar and the Firdausi order.
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