Hazrat Mumshad Ulowdonwari (ra)

Hazrat Khwaja Mamshad Uluw al-Dinawari (rh)

In your love I am fully prepared; At your door do I lay my heart and soul. Beside it, there is not other portal for me. Salutations to you, Hazrat Uluw-e-Dinwar Do hasten to the fulfillment of my heart's desires.

Khwaja Mumshad Uluw al-Dinawari r.a , named " the Effulgent Sun" by his peers, is regarded as being one of the greatest saints of his era. His knowledge of Allah was unparalleled; and his inner purity was admired by his fellow-travellers among the Sufis.

He was a very wealthy in his home city, and spent vast sums looking after poor and needy. Because of his great generosity he was given the title Karim ad-Din ( the kindness of the religion). After being initiated into suluk, he gave away the rest of his worldly possessions and took the path of faqiri ( spiritual contentment in material poverty).

It is reported that the day he was born, he refrained from drinking his mother's milk until iftar. Astonish, he carried this practice of fasting during the day throughout his entire life. When asked why, he replied that he wished to break his fast on the day of Qiyamah with the vision of Allah. His nights used to be spent in deep ibadah and muraqabah (contemplation of Allah).

Khwaja Mumshad r.a was inspired to become the murid of Khwaja Amin ad-Din Hubayrah by Hazrat al-Khidr, and was given khilafat immediately after making baayah. His shaykh cast away his tawajjuh upon him, causing Mumshad Uluw to lose consciousness forty times in succession. Only after Khwaja Amin ad-Din applied some of his saliva to his murid mouth did he completely recover. When asked what he had seen, he replied, in thirty years of study and mujahadah, I did not receive what I gained from that one glance.

Khwaja Mumshad Uluw r.a was very fond of Sema, and used to celebrate the urs of his elders with they mystical musical assembly. He explained that Sema aroused the love of Allah in the heart, leading to closeness and eventual wasul with the Lord-which was the ultimate goal of all seekers of the Truth.

He was the murshid of Khwaja Abu Ishaq Chishti r.a after whom the Chishtiya Silsila was founded, and it was he who blessed it and prophesied the impact it would wield on the course of Islamic history.

Aphorisms

1. Tasawwuf is abandonment of that which is futile; tawakkul is abandonment of what the heart desires.

2. The changing conditions of life do not influence the man whose goal is Allah.

3. When a man goes to a shaykh with his own spiritual states, he is deprived of the benefit of that company, because he is engrossed in his own knowledge.

4. A man who considers himself significant even in the company of a saint, will gain nothing from the advice of that saint.

He attained unity with Beloved Allah on 14th Muharram 299 AH and lies buried in Baghdad. At the time of his death, seeing a man making a duaa that Allah grant him Paradise, he laughed and said, " for thirty years Jannah and all its adornments appeared before me, but I barely gave it a glance. I yearn for the Master of Paradise!" His Major Khulafa include the founder of the Chishtiya Silsilah, Khwaja Abu Ishaq Sahami Chishti r.a.