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A Sufi who lived in India and is known by the nisba Simnani; in the sources he appears as Sayyid Ashraf Jahangir Simnani, and in one place as Sayyid Muhammad Ashraf Jahangir Simnani. He has no entry of his own in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam; the information below is compiled from four separate entries that mention him.
He is counted among the well-known disciples of 'Ala' al-Dawla Simnani, founder of the Rukniyya branch of the Kubrawiyya. According to the entry on the Chishtiyya, however, he was one of the two outstanding disciples of Shaykh 'Ala' al-Din b. As'ad (d. 801/1398), who had been trained by Akhi Siraj, the propagator of the Chishtiyya in Bengal.
He went to India and settled near Awadh (Oudh); the Ashrafiyya branch of the Kubrawiyya is attributed to him. Together with the other outstanding disciple, Sayyid Nur Qutb-i 'Alam (d. 813/1410), he played a very important part in making the Chishtiyya known in Bengal, Bihar and the eastern part of the united provinces. Badi' al-Din Qutb al-Madar, founder of the Madariyya order, made his first pilgrimage together with him; it is reported that Shaykh Ashraf praised him in some of his treatises and called him an "Uwaysi." He is also named among the well-known saints with whom the Chishti shaykh Gisudaraz had contact.
He died in 808 (1405); the sources do not state where.
His Works — His letters, under the title Maktubat-i Ashrafi, are counted among the main examples of the letter genre in the Chishti tradition. That he wrote some treatises is clear from the entry on Badi' al-Din Qutb al-Madar. Nizam al-Din Yamani's Lata'if-i Ashrafi (Delhi 1395) appears in the bibliographies of the entries on the Chishtiyya and on Gisudaraz.
Differing Scholarly Views
Which chain he belongs to — The TDV entries mention him in two different chains. The entry on the Chishtiyya (Khaliq Ahmad Nizami) records him as a disciple of the Chishti shaykh 'Ala' al-Din b. As'ad and as one who helped make the Chishtiyya known in the eastern provinces. The Kubrawiyya section of the entry on Najm al-Din Kubra (Hamid Algar), on the other hand, counts him among the disciples of 'Ala' al-Dawla Simnani and attributes to him the Ashrafiyya branch of the Kubrawiyya. The sources do not relate these two records to each other; the atlas makes no choice between them. The TDV entry EŞREFİYYE, for its part, concerns an entirely different order (the branch of the Qadiriyya attributed to Eşrefoğlu Rumi) and has nothing to do with him.
The location of the grave — None of the TDV entries examined mentions his grave or Kichaucha; they record only that he settled near Awadh (Oudh). The Kichaucha information in the atlas record could not be confirmed by these sources and awaits a second source.
The chain of information — Since he has no encyclopedia entry of his own, his birth, education and the details of his life do not appear in this record; what is written is limited to sentences found in the entries on other figures and orders.
Sources
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. 8, pp. 343-346, entry “Çiştiyye”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Hamid Algar · vol. 32, pp. 500-506, entry “NECMEDDÎN-i KÜBRÂ (2. Kübreviyye)”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) — Recep Uslu · vol. 5, p. 327, entry “BEDÎÜDDİN KUTBÜLMEDÂR”
- TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (DİA) · vol. 14, pp. 94-95, entry “Gîsûdırâz”
The sources for this record are listed below (Mandatory Sources).
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