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    Akhund Abdul Ghaffur was a Sufi religious leader who took on followers (murids) to spread Islam through reform and revitalization. He appointed some murids as deputies (khalifas) to represent his authority and teachings to the public during his life and after his death. While still teaching Sufi practices secretly, Ghaffur made Islamic teachings more widely available. He created a network of murids to spread religion at the village level. Some of his most important murids established influence in various regions. Ghaffur consolidated power by undermining religious rivals, like forcing a competitor named the Kotah Mulla out of the area. Ghaffur's regional influence was represented through his mur

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    Akhund Abdul Ghaffur was a Sufi religious leader who took on followers (murids) to spread Islam through reform and revitalization. He appointed some murids as deputies (khalifas) to represent his authority and teachings to the public during his life and after his death. While still teaching Sufi practices secretly, Ghaffur made Islamic teachings more widely available. He created a network of murids to spread religion at the village level. Some of his most important murids established influence in various regions. Ghaffur consolidated power by undermining religious rivals, like forcing a competitor named the Kotah Mulla out of the area. Ghaffur's regional influence was represented through his mur

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    38 views2 pages

    Ideology of Saidu Baba

    Uploaded by

    M.afzaal
    Akhund Abdul Ghaffur was a Sufi religious leader who took on followers (murids) to spread Islam through reform and revitalization. He appointed some murids as deputies (khalifas) to represent his authority and teachings to the public during his life and after his death. While still teaching Sufi practices secretly, Ghaffur made Islamic teachings more widely available. He created a network of murids to spread religion at the village level. Some of his most important murids established influence in various regions. Ghaffur consolidated power by undermining religious rivals, like forcing a competitor named the Kotah Mulla out of the area. Ghaffur's regional influence was represented through his mur

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    of 2

    As was tradition, Akhund Abdul Ghaffur took on a number of mu rids who pledged their allegiance at his

    hand and were entrusted with a social mission of reform and revitalisation of Islam- an imperative to
    which the Akhund was said to have devoted his life. A trusted few murids were appointed as khalifas
    whose services to their pir included those of scribes and of official representatives. The khalifas was
    trusted enough to represent their pir's authority and spirituality to the lay man in the pir's lifetime and
    were entrusted with taking forward his teachings after his death." Akhund Ghaffur still taught his murids
    the particulars of Sufi religious practice according to the secrecy and rigour of Sufi tariqa, but he also
    tried to make the teachings of Islam general and accessible. Sufi pedagogy was no longer simply
    confined to a close circle - the focus changed to making knowledge available and disseminating it widely.
    In its new form Islam existed outside the confines of the Sufi dargah and the rigours of tariqa. Its driving
    imperative was to engage the local Pakhtun populations in revivalist religious practice, and de-
    emphasise the place of the shrine and the Sufi pir as intercedents between man and God.

    The innovation in Akhund Ghaffur's pedagogy created a network of his deputies who took the practice
    of religion to the village level. Of his many murids some of the most important were the Mulla Na
    jmuddin in Hadda Sharif (d. 1901); the Sartor Faqir Saadullah Khan (1824-1914) from Buner who was
    involved in Swat politics, Mulla Atkar of Khost (active in 1888); Mulla Babra in Bajaur (active 1882); the
    Hazrat Abdul Wahab of Manki Sharif (d. 1904); Mulla Khalil (active in 1888) and the Haji Sahib Bedmani
    (d.1883) in Mohmand; Wali Muhammad Khan in Tirah (d. 1887); and Sayyid Akbar who became the
    amir-badshah of Swat.

    Akhund Abdul Ghaffur had not simply affected the ideological bent of regional religious personalities,
    but brought about the reloca tion of his murids as in the case of Hazrat Abdul Wahab who moved to
    Manki Sharif after participating in the Akhund's 1862-3 jibad." Mulla Abubakar Akhunzada from Ghazni
    moved to Makhrani in Swat as the Akhund's murid." The Akhund appeared to send away those who fell
    out of favour as well. When a dispute arose between Mulla Khalil and Haji Sahib of Bedmani, the Akhund
    forced Mulla Khalil out of Swat. Akhund Ghaffur's greatest conflict was with Hazrat Sayyid Maruf Bey,
    the Kotah Mulla who had moved to upper Swat-Kohistan from Swabi and participated in Sayyid Ahmed's
    movement as well. The Kotah Mulla was a supporter of Shah Shuja, the British spon sored Afghan Amir
    who briefly held the throne of Kabul from 1839 to 1843. The Kotah Mulla had opposed the Dost
    Muhammad Khan faction in 1835 and provided the British with information that led to the Akhund's
    defeat and flight from the battlefield at Peshawar in 1835. Akhund Ghaffur focused efforts on
    undermining and excluding the Kotah Mulla from the domain of religious leadership in Swat. He referred
    to the Kotah Mulla as the disciple of the sixteenth-century

    apostate, Bayyazid Roshan Baba, and the practitioner of heretical ritu als."

    Akhund Ghaffur's exclusion and discrediting of the Kotah Mulla demonstrates the manner in which the
    former consolidated and pro moted his own presence in Swat by asserting interpretive authority."5 He
    also threatened supporters of the Kotah Mulla with armed attacks if they did not evict the latter from
    Buner. Akhund Ghaffur finally managed to convince the Bunerwals to push the Kotah Mulla out of the
    village where he was hosted." This incident demonstrates Akhund Ghaffur's will to consolidate and
    regularise regional religious author ity. Competitors could not be tolerated, or even allowed to remain in
    Swat. Hence, the dominance of his line in the late nineteenth century was engineered by Akhund
    Ghaffur by effort rather than by chance.
    The Akhund's regional influence, in no small part stemming from his alliance with Dost Muhammad
    Khan and the great fortune he re ceived after 1835, was represented by and exercised through his
    murids. Akbar Badshah was the most obvious example of this, but the murid who came to great
    prominence later was the I ladda Mulla Najmud din who had served as a khalifa to Sayyid Ahmed of Rai
    Bareilly." All of Akhund Ghaffur's muride brought their own influence to their relationship with Akhund
    Abdul Ghaffur, creating a composite that would dominate the Pakhtun Tribal Areas well into the
    twentieth century,

    Page 43,44,45

    Frontier of faith islam in the indo afghan borderdland by sana haroon

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