Ali al-Hujwiri (Data Ganj Bakhsh)

A Sufi author known for his work Kashf al-mahjub; in the Indian subcontinent he is known by the title Data Ganj Bakhsh, "the great saint who bestows treasure". His full name is Abu al-Hasan Ali b. Uthman b. Abi Ali al-Jullabi al-Hujwiri. According to Ghulam Sarwar, the first to use this title for him was the founder of the Chishtiyya, Mu'in al-Din Hasan al-Chishti (d. 633/1236), who addressed him so while praying for him after completing a spiritual retreat in his tomb.

He was born in Ghazna; on the basis of what he says about the Sufis he met, he can be said to have been born at the beginning of the XI. century. When his family, of Iranian or Indian origin, settled in Ghazna is unknown. In his book he used both the nisbas Hujwiri and Jullabi, and in time became famous as Hujwiri; the old name of the Arbabha locality near Ghazna, where the grave of his father Shaykh Uthman lies, was probably Jullab or Hujwir. His mother's grave is in Ghazna, beside that of her other son, Shaykh Taj al-Awliya. He received his first religious knowledge from his father, and the Kashf al-mahjub shows that he studied law according to the Hanafi school.

Following the custom of the scholars of his time he undertook long journeys; he appears to have travelled through Syria, Turkestan, Qazvin, India, Iraq, Khuzistan, Azerbaijan, Jurjan, Khurasan and Transoxiana, though when these journeys took place is not known. He relates that in Baghdad he saw a group of heretics posing as Sufis, that in Farghana he visited Bab Farghani, that whenever a difficulty arose he went to Bistam to visit the tomb of Bayazid Bistami, that each of the 300 Sufis he saw in Khurasan was worth the whole world, and that in Bukhara he met Shaykh Ahmad-i Samarqandi. Although he writes about the pilgrimage, there is no record in his book that he went to the Hijaz. He lived mostly in lands under Ghaznavid rule; he took part in the learned gatherings held before Mahmud of Ghazna and in one of them silenced an Indian sage in debate.

When he set out on his first journey he had probably not yet entered Sufism. He met his true guide, Abu al-Fadl al-Khuttali, near Damascus, went with him to Azerbaijan and did not leave him until his death. He says that al-Khuttali knew exegesis well, adopted the views of Junayd al-Baghdadi in Sufism, and opposed scholars and Sufis who valued outward form. He also benefited from Sufis such as Abu al-Abbas al-Shaqqani, Abu al-Qasim al-Jurjani and Muzaffar b. Ahmad b. Hamdan.

After his guide's death, in accordance with his will, he went to India with his friends Ahmad b. Hammad al-Sarakhsi and Abu Sa'id Hujwiri, and began teaching students and spreading Islam in the mosque he had built west of the city of Lahore on the bank of the Ravi. Through his activity many Indians, above all the deputy governor of Lahore, Rai Raju, became Muslims. He must have gone to Lahore during the unrest in Ghazna that followed the Ghaznavid Sultan Mas'ud's defeat by the Seljuqs, probably in 431 (1039). While he was busy writing the Kashf al-mahjub, three Indian rajas joined forces, besieged Lahore and took many Muslims captive (435/1043); Hujwiri was among the 5000 Muslims freed by Sultan Mawdud b. Mas'ud.

The date of his death is not certain; the date the source considers correct is 465 (1072). His grave is in the precinct of his mosque in Lahore.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — He is a conscious representative of Junayd al-Baghdadi's understanding of Sufism. While giving reason as much weight as al-Muhasibi, he loves Sufis such as Bayazid Bistami and al-Hallaj with all his heart, yet is sober enough to advise that al-Hallaj, whom he admires, should not be followed or taken as a model. He used rational and logical measures as widely as possible to express the depths of the Sufi life; the source notes that in this he can be said to have surpassed al-Sarraj, al-Kalabadhi, al-Sulami and al-Qushayri. He sees Abu Hanifa not only as a jurist but as an ascetic who was the master of many Sufis such as Ibrahim b. Adham, Dawud al-Ta'i and Bishr al-Hafi. His interpretation of the 238 verses and 138 hadiths he quotes in his book shows his mastery of exegesis and hadith. He himself reports that his diwan was lost.

His Works — His most famous work is the Persian Kashf al-mahjub, which he probably began writing in 435 (1043) in Lahore; it is the first book to treat the theoretical and practical questions of Sufism systematically. It was written at the request of Abu Sa'id Hujwiri. Relating that a fraud had claimed his work Minhaj al-din as his own, the author mentioned his own name twenty-eight times in various places of the book so that it would not meet the same fate. The first part treats knowledge, poverty, the nature of Sufism, the Sufi cloak and blame, then gives biographies of the first four caliphs, the imams of the Prophet's family and the Sufis; next comes the most original section, a study of twelve Sufi schools (Muhasibiyya, Qassariyya, Tayfuriyya, Junaydiyya, Nuriyya, Sahliyya, Hakimiyya, Kharraziyya, Khafifiyya, Sayyariyya, Hallajiyya, Hulmaniyya), the last two of which the author calls outside the Sharia. The second part, in eleven sub-sections each opening with "Kashf al-hijab", treats knowledge of God, divine unity, faith, the acts of worship, companionship and Sufi terms. The work was first printed in 1903 in Lahore; Zhukovsky's critical edition appeared in Leningrad in 1926, and it was translated into English by Nicholson (London 1911), into Arabic by Is'ad Abd al-Hadi Qandil and into Turkish by Süleyman Uludağ (Istanbul 1982). Other books he names in it: Minhaj al-din, Kitab al-Fana wa'l-baqa, a commentary on the sayings of al-Hallaj, Kitab al-Bayan li-ahl al-iyan, Nahw al-qulub, Asrar al-khiraq wa'l-mulawwanat, al-Ri'aya bi-huquq Allah, Kitab al-Iman.

His Tomb and Complex — His grave lies in the precinct of his mosque in Lahore and is known as the Data Ganj Bakhsh Shrine. The Ghaznavid Sultan Ibrahim b. Mas'ud had a building erected beside the grave, new buildings were added in the time of Akbar Shah, and in 1861 Hajji Nur Muhammad Sado built a domed tomb over the grave. Later Miyan Ghulam Gilani built a new mosque in place of the one Hujwiri had built in his lifetime, and the site became a complex. On the inner walls of the tomb are three poems by Mu'in al-Din al-Chishti, Abd al-Rahman Jami and Muhammad Iqbal whose chronogram lines correspond to the date of his death. The shrine is today one of the places most visited by the Muslims of Pakistan; though the name Hujwiri is hardly known in the region, no one is ignorant of the name Data Ganj Bakhsh, and every year commemorations lasting seven days are held in his name.