Amir Kulal

Principal successor of Moḥammad Bābā Sammāsī in the line of the Ḵᵛājagān and the principal teacher on the path of Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqšband.

The earliest sources indicate that he was a Ḥosaynī sayyed (Rašaḥāt). His native village was Sūḵārī, near Bukhara; the sources used here give no year of birth.

Before entering the Sufi path he was much given to wrestling. One day in Rāmītan, feeling the powerful gaze of Bābā Sammāsī fixed on him during a bout, he abandoned this pursuit and turned to Sufism; thereafter he remained almost constantly in Sammāsī's company and became his most prominent disciple.

When Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqšband was born in 718/1318, Sammāsī adopted the child as his spiritual progeny and entrusted Amīr Kolāl with training him when he attained maturity. After Sammāsī's death Bahāʾ-al-Dīn was entrusted to Amīr Kolāl for his formal initiation and training, in accordance with Sammāsī's instructions. It is said that Bahāʾ-al-Dīn had from him the link of companionship (nesbat-e ṣoḥbat), instruction in the customs of the path (taʿlīm-e ādāb-e ṭarīqat) and the inculcation of ḏekr (talqīn-e ḏekr) (Nafaḥāt). Bahāʾ-al-Dīn spent many years with Amīr Kolāl, being often upbraided for complacency with his still imperfect state and assigned, by way of chastisement, to menial tasks such as fetching the water for his master's ablutions (Manāqeb-e Amīr Kolāl).

During his time with Amīr Kolāl, Bahāʾ-al-Dīn's restriction of himself to silent ḏekr, following the Owaysī link he had received from the spiritual being of ʿAbd-al-Ḵāleq Ḡojdovānī, caused tension in the circle: Bahāʾ-al-Dīn withdrew from Amīr Kolāl's gathering whenever the dervishes began vocal ḏekr. This led to resentment among them, but Bahāʾ-al-Dīn continued to treat Amīr Kolāl with the utmost reverence and enjoyed his increasing favor. On the occasion of the building of a mosque in his native village of Sūḵārī, Amīr Kolāl rebuked his disciples for their hostility to Bahāʾ-al-Dīn and praised him as one whom God Himself had favored above the rest (Rašaḥāt). Bahāʾ-al-Dīn later sought out the practitioners of silent ḏekr in the company of Mawlānā ʿĀref Dīkgarānī, another disciple of Amīr Kolāl.

The sources used here give neither the date of Amīr Kolāl's death nor the place of his grave.

His Circle of Influence — His most important disciple was Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqšband; the Naqšbandī tradition places the companionship, customs and inculcation of ḏekr received from him at the axis of the chain. Mawlānā ʿĀref Dīkgarānī is also named among his disciples. His hagiography is gathered in Mawlānā Šehāb-al-Dīn's Manāqeb-e Amīr Kolāl; the Anīs al-ṭālebīn, completed by Ṣalāḥ b. Mobārak Boḵārī in 785/1383, likewise gives particular attention, in its second chapter on Bahāʾ-al-Dīn's chain, to his two successive teachers Bābā Sammāsī and Amīr Kolāl.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — Vocal ḏekr was practiced in Amīr Kolāl's circle; Bahāʾ-al-Dīn's exclusive adoption of silent ḏekr produced a divergence within it. The source notes that silent ḏekr had been practiced only sporadically by the earlier links in the chain.