A Digital Atlas of Sacred Geography

Saints

1113 records · Page 6/47

Remembered in Jumada al-Awwal

Saints whose death anniversary falls this Hijri month (sourced).

Sayyid Karam Ali Shah

A fourteenth-century Sufi held to be among the companions/disciples of Shah Makhdum Rupos, who spread Islam in Rajshahi. He earned the title 'Ghazi' for the campaigns he joined from 1326, then settled at the village of Biraldaha in Puthia. A 1582 CE copperplate records his name as one of four dervishes in Shah Makhdum's mission. His tomb lies in the shrine grounds associated with the Biraldaha Mosque. His exact death date is unclear in the sources; he is remembered as a fourteenth-century figure, with thinner corroboration than the others.

Shah Niamatullah of Firozpur

A Sufi buried at Firozpur, Shibganj, on the Bangladesh side of the old Bengal capital of Gaur. Over his grave the Mughal governor and prince Shah Shuja (r. 1639-1660) had built the Baraduari, the first Mughal-style tomb within present-day Bangladesh; the structure is a protected monument of the Department of Archaeology. He should not be confused with other figures of the same name from Iran or Dhaka. His exact death date is not recorded in the sources.

ChapainawabganjView

Sayyid Gulamur Rahman (Baba Bhandari)

A Sufi born in 1865 in the village of Maizbhandar, Fatikchhari, popularly titled 'Baba Bhandari'. He succeeded his uncle Sayyid Ahmad Ullah, founder of the Maizbhandari order, as its head and played a major role in the order's spread. He died in 1937 and was buried at Maizbhandar among his forebears. His tomb, a distinct shrine within the Maizbhandar Darbar Sharif complex, is one of the order's central pilgrimage sites.

ChittagongDied 1356 AHView

Shah Sufi Khwaja Yunus Ali Enayetpuri

Born in 1886, he is regarded as one of the most influential Sufis of twentieth-century Bengal. After pledging allegiance to Shah Sufi Sayyid Wazed Ali in Kolkata and undergoing twelve years of spiritual training, he received the title 'Khwaja' and returned to Enayetpur, Sirajganj, where he founded the Enayetpur Darbar Sharif. His path drew on the Qadiri, Chishti, Naqshbandi and Mujaddidi lineages, with a marked Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi emphasis. He died in 1952 and was buried at the Enayetpur shrine on the bank of the Jamuna river, today a centre visited by hundreds of thousands of followers.

SirajganjDied 1371 AHView

Shah Sufi Hashmatullah (Khwaja Baba Faridpuri)

A Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi Sufi born around 1914 in the village of Pakuria, Jamalpur. Trained under Khwaja Yunus Ali Enayetpuri, founder of the Enayetpur Darbar Sharif, he established the Bishwa Zaker Manzil at Atroshi, Faridpur around 1945, a khanqah that grew into a nationwide institution. He died in 2001 and was buried within the Atroshi complex. His tomb stands at the heart of the Bishwa Zaker Manzil pilgrimage site.

FaridpurDied 2001View

Sayyid Ahmad Ullah Maizbhandari

A Sufi born in Bengal (1826) regarded as the founder of the Maizbhandari order, the only indigenous Sufi tariqa to have originated within the Bengal region. Traced to the Qadiri lineage, he combined madrasa scholarship with Sufi practice and local Bengali devotional expression. He died on 23 January 1906 in his native village of Maizbhandar, Fatikchhari, Chittagong, and was buried there. His tomb forms the Maizbhandar Darbar Sharif, one of Bangladesh's largest pilgrimage centres, hosting an annual urs attended by hundreds of thousands.

ChittagongDied 1323 AHView

Shah Sultan Kamar Uddin Rumi

An eleventh-century Sufi held in tradition to be among the first to settle in Bengal, said to have arrived around 1053 with his teacher Sayyid Shah Surkhul Antia. After preaching, the local Koch ruler granted him Madanpur as rent-free land, where he died (c. 1075) and was buried. His tomb lies in Madanpur village, about 8 km south of Netrokona town. He is a symbolic figure of Islam's early arrival in Bengal, though sources treat the pre-conquest dating with caution.

NetrokonaDied 468 AHView

Sayyid Muhammad Ishaq (Pir of Charmonai)

An Islamic scholar, exegete, debater and educationist born in 1915 into a Sayyid family in Charmonai, Backergunge (Barisal). From a madrasa and orphanage he began in his own home in 1932, he built one of southern Bengal's largest Islamic institutional complexes and became the first Pir of Charmonai Darbar Sharif. He belonged to the Hanafi Sunni scholarly tradition (Deoband/Gangohi line). He died in 1977 and was buried at Charmonai, remembered by his followers as 'Dada Huzur'; he was succeeded by his son Sayyid Fazlul Karim.

BarisalDied 1397 AHView

Bahadur Shah Zafar

The last Mughal emperor and a Sufi-minded poet. Following the 1857 uprising he was exiled by the British to Rangoon (Yangon), where he spent his final years and died in 1862. He is reported to have accepted disciples as a Sufi pir and was known for his devotional poetry. His grave was rediscovered in 1991 and a dargah was built over it in 1994; he is revered by local Muslims as an 'emperor-saint' and the shrine on Ziwaka Road in Yangon is an important pilgrimage site. (The exact location of the grave was disputed until the 1991 discovery.)

YangonDied 1279 AHView

Abid Shah Hussaini

A learned Muslim said to have come from Afghanistan. Arriving in Amarapura in 1795 at the age of nineteen, Abid Shah Hussaini was appointed by the Konbaung king Bodawpaya to adjudicate disputes within the Muslim community. He died in 1815. His grave in the historic Lin Zin Gone (Lin-Zin-Kone) cemetery of Amarapura stands as a dargah/shrine and is among the foremost pilgrimage sites for Muslims of central Myanmar.

AmarapuraDied 1230 AHView

Abu al-Barakat Yusuf al-Barbari (al-Tabrizi)

He is traditionally credited as the missionary who brought about the conversion of the Maldives to Islam in 1153 CE. According to tradition he invited the last Buddhist king Dhovemi (who took the name Sultan Muhammad al-Adil upon conversion) to Islam, and the whole island population followed; this date is considered the beginning of nearly six centuries of Islamic rule comprising six dynasties and eighty-four sultans and sultanas. In Maldivian folklore he is said to have ended the terror of a sea-demon named Rannamaari, who exacted tribute from the islands, by reciting the Qur'an through the night, after which the king embraced Islam. His origin is disputed among sources: Ibn Battuta's 14th-century Maldivian account records him as a North African (Maghrebi/Berber) scholar; one view holds he was of Somali/Berbera origin, while a later view identifies him as a Persian scholar from Tabriz (Yusuf Shams al-Din al-Tabrizi) — the near-identical appearance of the epithets 'al-Barbari' and 'al-Tabrizi' in classical Arabic script is regarded as the source of the confusion. His tomb is in the Medhu Ziyaaraiy shrine opposite the Friday Mosque (Hukuru Miskiy) in Malé; the present shrine structure was built in 1906 during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shamsuddeen III. His date of death is not definitively recorded in the sources.

Sayyid Jabbar Ali Shah

A Sufi who came from Bukhara in Central Asia and settled in 1845 at Kataragama, revered by Muslims as the 'land of al-Khidr' (Khidr-gama). He spent a long life in solitude, remembrance, worship and voluntary poverty. His mausoleum is one of the most prominent features of the Islamic precinct at Kataragama, said to be surrounded by some sixty unmarked graves of Muslim pilgrims. His exact death date is not recorded in the sources.

Bathri Waliyullah

A Sufi buried in a small walled tomb on a cliff just outside the ramparts of Galle Fort, near the Aeolus and Star bastions. He is known as 'Bathri Waliyullah' (roughly 'the saint beside the batteries/fortifications'); his actual name is unknown. According to tradition he washed ashore and was buried where he was found. References to the tomb in Sufi literature date back to the 1880s, and the grave is thought to be older. It is maintained by the local Muslim community with an annual ceremony. Note: as his name is unknown his identity is not certain; he is recorded here as a named, community-venerated shrine visited for centuries.

Sharif Alawi

Sharif Alawi was an Arab-Malay missionary of Prophetic descent (sharif) on his father's side; according to Meranaw (Maranao) tradition he landed on the shores of present-day Misamis Oriental (northern Mindanao), and his preaching spread from there into Lanao and Bukidnon. He is said to have established the Sultanate of Tagoloan in the early 16th century (traditionally 1500–1515) and to have been a kinsman (in one account, elder brother) of Sharif Kabungsuwan, founder of the Sultanate of Maguindanao. He played an important role in the early spread of Islam in the region, and his descendants remained there; the town of Tagoloan in Lanao del Sur is named after him. Although his tomb is said to be in the region, its exact location has not been archaeologically verified (burial certainty disputed).

Lanao del SurView

Shaykh Ashraff Waliullah

A merchant-scholar and Sufi said to have led a party of seven from Hadramawt in Yemen that came ashore at Beruwala around 1024 CE. He was buried on the Ketchimalai headland, regarded as the point where Sri Lanka's Muslim (Moor) community first settled on the island. His tomb forms the nucleus of the Ketchchimalai Dargah, one of the oldest Islamic pilgrimage sites in the country; the present mosque over the site was built in 1911. He is a symbolic figure of Islam's arrival on the island.

BeruwalaDied 1024View

Rajah Baguinda Ali

Rajah Baguinda Ali was a Muslim prince of the Minangkabau Pagaruyung dynasty of Sumatra who, shortly after Sheikh Karim ul-Makhdum brought Islam to the region, arrived in Buansa (Sulu) around 1390 according to tradition. Winning the trust of the local people through his peaceful intent and Islamic faith, he was accepted with the title 'Rajah' and reinforced the establishment of Islam in Sulu. He married his daughter Dayang-dayang Paramisuli to Sayyid Abu Bakr, who later founded the Sultanate of Sulu, naming him his successor and preparing the political-religious ground for the sultanate. His tomb is reported to lie at Bud Datu in Indanan, beneath a balete (strangler fig) tree; the exact location has not been numerically verified.

Shaykh Sayyid Usman Siddique Waliullah

A Sufi venerated as the spiritual patron of Colombo (Cinnamon Gardens / Colombo 7), known among Sri Lankan Muslims by the title 'Quthubus Saylan' (Qutb of Ceylon) and traced to the Siddiqi lineage. His grave was uncovered around 1802 and the Dewatagaha Mosque was built over it in the 1820s. His shrine is one of Colombo's most frequented pilgrimage sites, visited by people of all faiths. His exact death date is not clearly recorded in the sources; he is remembered as an 18th-19th century figure.

Hu Dengzhou (Hu Taishi)

A Hui Muslim scholar born in 1522 in Xianyang, Shaanxi (adjacent to Xi'an), universally credited as the founder of jingtang jiaoyu (mosque/scripture-hall education) in Chinese Islam and venerated as 'Hu Taishi' (Grand Master Hu). Dissatisfied with the poor instruction at his local mosque, he studied the Islamic sciences and, on returning, moved private teaching into the mosque, developing a graduated Arabic- and Persian-language curriculum (Qur'an, hadith, fiqh) and standardizing the translated texts used in mosques — a legacy that fed the later Han Kitab tradition of scholarship. He died in 1597 (Wanli 25); his tomb was relocated in 1662 to escape flooding to its present site at Hujiagou village, Yaodian township, Weicheng District, Xianyang, and has been a Shaanxi provincial protected relic since 2003. (Sources: silkroads.org.cn '胡登洲墓'; baike.baidu.com '胡登洲墓'; MDPI Religions 13(6):553 on jingtang jiaoyu)

Xi'anDied 1006 AHView

Ma Laichi (Abu'l-Futuh)

A Chinese Hui Muslim Sufi (born c. 1681) whose Arabic name was Abu'l-Futuh; he brought the Naqshbandi-Khufiyya ('silent ones') movement to China and founded the Hua Si ('Multicolored Mosque') menhuan — the earliest and most important Naqshbandi order in Chinese Muslim history. After study abroad he settled in Hezhou (present-day Linxia). His emphasis on silent dhikr stands in direct contrast to Ma Mingxin's vocal dhikr. His death year is disputed in the sources (1766 or 1780). His tomb is the Hua Si Gongbei in Linxia. (Sources: en.wikipedia.org 'Ma Laichi' & 'Huasi Mosque'; islamichina.com 'Naqshbandi Khufiyya in China')

Ma Yuanzhang

Born c. 1850, he was a leading shaykh of the Jahriyya menhuan and a direct descendant of its founder Ma Mingxin. After the suppression of the 1895 Gansu Muslim uprising he rebuilt the shattered Jahriyya organization and moved its headquarters to Zhangjiachuan in eastern Gansu; his followers called him the 'New Prophet.' He died on 16 December 1920 together with his son when a mosque collapsed in the Haiyuan earthquake. His tomb at Xuanhuagang near Zhangjiachuan is a principal Jahriyya shrine. (Sources: en.wikipedia.org 'Ma Yuanzhang' & 'Ma Hualong'; J. Lipman, Familiar Strangers)

ZhangjiachuanDied 1339 AHView

Sultan Sharif ul-Hashim (Sayyid Abu Bakr)

Sharif ul-Hashim, whose full name was Sayyid Abu Bakr Abirin al-Hashimi, was a Sufi scholar and missionary of Sayyid descent through the Ba-Alawi lineage of Hadhramaut (Yemen), who came to Sulu from Johor. Settling in Buansa in the first half of the 15th century, he spent about thirty years spreading Islam in the region, promulgated the first Sulu code of laws (the Quran-based 'Diwan'), and established Islamic political institutions, founding the Sultanate of Sulu. He is thus one of the pivotal figures of Southeast Asian Islamic history. His tomb is traditionally said to lie on a slope of the sacred Mount Tumantangis (Bud Tumantangis) in Indanan, Sulu; the exact location is disputed.

Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Umar al-Bukhari

A Central Asian Muslim statesman born in Bukhara, reputedly of Prophetic descent, who rose in the Mongol Yuan administration and was appointed the first provincial governor of Yunnan in 1274. He built the first mosques of Yunnan and spread Islam and education, and is regarded as the founding ancestor of the Yunnanese Hui Muslim community — many Hui families trace their Ma surname to him. He died in Kunming in 1279 and was buried in the city's northern suburbs; his tomb is both a site of veneration and a nationally protected cultural relic. Though a statesman, he is venerated as the founding figure of Islam in China. (Sources: TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi; Encyclopaedia Iranica 'Sayyed Ajall'; zh.wikipedia.org '赛典赤·赡思丁墓')

KunmingDied 678 AHView

Qi Jingyi (Hilal al-Din)

A Chinese Hui Muslim Sufi born in 1656 whose Arabic name was Hilal al-Din; he is the founder of the Qadiriyya order in China, revered as 'Qi Daozu' (Grand Master Qi). In his youth he met Afaq Khoja and then became a disciple of Khwaja Abdullah; living an ascetic, celibate life, he preached across Shaanxi, Sichuan and Gansu and established the Qadiriyya menhuan (lineage brotherhood). He died in 1719 and was buried in his home city of Hezhou (present-day Linxia); the Da Gongbei ('Grand Gongbei') built over his grave is the principal Qadiri shrine in China. (Sources: en.wikipedia.org 'Qi Jingyi'; islamichina.com 'Qadiriyya Sufi in China'; baike.baidu.com '大拱北')

LinxiaDied 1131 AHView

Shaykh Sayyid Sahabdeen Waliyullah

A Sufi affiliated with the lineage of the Nagore saint Shahul Hamid Meeran Sahib of South India. The Meera Makam Mosque in Kandy was named for his master, Meeran Sahib, and Sahabdeen Waliyullah himself is buried within this mosque. The land was gifted by the Kandyan king Kirti Sri Rajasinha to a Muslim courtier, and the present structure was built between 1855 and 1864. It is an important spiritual centre for the Muslims of Kandy.