Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti - Ajmeer, India

Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer , India .
Religion Islam
Other name(s) Hazrat Khwaja Gharīb Nawāz
Personal
Born 1141
Khorasan (in modern Afghanistan ) or Isfahan (in modern Iran )
Died 1230
Ajmer
Senior posting
Based in Ajmer, Northern India
Title غریب نواز Gharīb Nawāz، سُلطان الہند Sultan-ul-Hind (emperor of India) Shaikh , Khalifa
Period in office Late 12th century and early 13th century
Predecessor Usman Harooni
Successor Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki
Sultan-ul-Hind, Moinuddin Chishti ( Urdu / Persian : معین الدین چشتی ‎) ( Persian : چشتی ‎ - Čištī ) ( Arabic : ششتى ‎ - Shishti ) was born in 1141 and died in 1230 CE. Also known as Gharīb Nawāz "Benefactor of the Poor" ( غریب نواز ), he is the most famous Sufi saint of the Chishti Order of the Indian Subcontinent . He introduced and established the order in South Asia. The initialspiritual chain or silsila of the Chishti order in India, comprisingMoinuddin Chishti, Bakhtiyar Kaki , Baba Farid and Nizamuddin Auliya (each successive person being the disciple of the previousone), constitutes the great Sufi saints of Indian history.
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Establishing the Chishtīorder in India
The Chishtī order was founded by Abu Ishaq Shami (“the Syrian”) in Chisht, some 95 miles east of Herat in present-day western Afghanistan . [ 4 ] Moinuddin Chishti established theorder in India, in the city of Ajmer in North India.
Moinuddin Chishti apparently never wrote down his teachings in the form of a book, nor did hisimmediate disciples, but the central principles that became characteristics of the Chishtī order in India are based on his teachings and practices. They laystress on renunciation of material goods; strict regime of self-discipline and personal prayer; participation in Samā' as a legitimate means to spiritual transformation; reliance on either cultivation or unsolicited offerings as means of basic subsistence; independence from rulers and the state, including rejection of monetary and land grants; generosity to others, particularly, through sharing of food and wealth, and tolerance and respect for religious differences.
He, in other words, interpreted religion in terms of human service and exhorted his disciples "to develop river-like generosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality." The highest form of devotion, according to him, was "to redress the misery of those in distress – to fulfill the needs of the helpless and to feed the hungry."
It was during the reign of Emperor Akbar (1556–1605) thatAjmer emerged as one of the most important centers of pilgrimage in India. The Mughal Emperor undertook an unceremonial journey on foot to accomplish his wish to reach Ajmer. The Akbarnāmah records that the Emperor's interest first sparked when he heard some minstrels singing songs about the virtues of the Walī (Friend of God) who lay asleep in Ajmer.
Moinuddin Chishtī authored several books including Anīs al-Arwāḥ and Dalīl al-'Ārifīn , both of which deal with the Islamic code of living.
Quṭbuddīn Baktiyār Kākī (d. 1235) and Ḥamīduddīn Nagorī (d.1276) were Moinuddin Chishtī's celebrated Khalīfas or successors who continued to transmit the teachings of their master through their disciples, leading tothe widespread proliferation of the Chishtī Order in India.
Among Quṭbuddīn Baktiyār's prominent disciples was Farīduddīn Ganj-i-Shakar (d. 1265), whose dargāh is at Pakpattan , (Pakistan). Farīduddīn's most famous disciple was Nizāmuddīn Auliyā' (d. 1325) popularly referred to as Mahbūb-e-Ilāhī (God's beloved), whose dargāh is located in South Delhi.
From Delhi, disciples branched out to establish dargāhs in several regions of South Asia, from Sindh in the west to Bengal in the east, and the Deccan in the south. But from all the network of Chishtī dargāhs the Ajmer dargāh took on the special distinction of being the 'mother' dargah of them all.

8e] Short Stories - ''Ridan the Devil''

8e]
The two Savage Islanders sprang to his aid, drew him up over the side,
and tumbled him into the boat.Then, without a further look, they
seized their paddles and plunged theminto the water. Ridan lay ina
huddled-up heap on the bottom boards.
'Exhausted, poor devil!' said Von Hammer to himself, bending down and
peering at the motionless figure through the darkness. Then something
warm flowed over his naked foot as the boat rolled, and he looked
closer at Ridan, and--
'Oh, my God!' burst from him--both of Ridan's legs were gone--bitten
off just above the knees.
Twenty minutes later, as the boat came alongside the Mindora , Ridan
'the devil' died in the arms of the man who had once given him a
drink./

8d] Short Stories - ''Ridan the Devil''

8d]
once in five years. It's a very isolated spot, off the north-鑑st coast
of New Guinea. "Bully" Hayes used to call there once. However, let me
have him.The Mindora may go to Manila next year; if so, I'll land him
at On阛ta on our way there. Anyway, he's no good to you. And he told me
just now that he has been waiting his chance to murder you.'
The Mindora returned to Apia to take in stores, and Von Hammer took
Ridan with him, clothed in a suit of blue serge, and with silent
happiness illumininghis face. For his heart was leaping within him at
the thought of On阛ta, and of those who numbered him with the dead; and
when he clambered up the ship'sside and saw Pulu, the big Samoan,
working on deck with the other native sailors, he flung his arms
around him and gave him a mighty hug, and laughedlike a pleased child
when Von Hammer told him thatPulu would be his shipmate till he saw
the green land and white beach of On阛ta once more.
* * * * *
Six months out from Samoa the Mindora was hove-to off Choiseul
Island,in the Solomon Group, waiting for her boat. Von Hammer and four
hands had gone ashore to land supplies for a trader, and the brig was
awaiting his return. There was a heavy sea running on the reef as the
boat pushed off from the beach in the fast-gathering darkness; but who
minds such thingswith a native crew? So thought Von Hammer as he
grasped the long, swaying steer oar, and swung the whale-boat's head
to the white line of surf. 'Give it to her, boys; now's our
chance--there's a bit of a lull now, eh, Pulu? Bend to it, Ridan,
mylad.'
Out shot the boat, Pulu pulling stroke, Ridan bow-oar, and two sturdy,
square-built Savage Islanders amidships. Surge after surge roared and
hissed past in the darkness, and never a dropof water wetted their
naked backs; and then, with a wild cry from the crew and a shouting
laughfrom the steersman, she swept over and down the edge of the reef
and gained the deep water--a second too late! Ere she could rise from
the blackened trough a great curling roller towered highover, and then
with a bursting roar fell upon andsmothered her. When she rose to the
surface Von Hammer was fifty feet away, clinging to the steer-oar. A
quick glance showed him that none of the crew were missing--they were
all holding on to the swamped boat and 'swimming' her out away from
the reef, and shouting loudly for him to come alongside. Pushing the
steer-oar before him, he soon reached the boat, and, despite his own
unwillingness, his crew insisted on his getting in. Then, each still
grasping the gunwale with one hand, they worked the boat out yard by
yard, swaying her fore and aft whenever a lull in the seascame, and
jerking the water out of her by degrees till the two Savage Islanders
were ableto clamber in and bale out with the wooden bucket slung under
the after-thwart, while the white man kept her head to the sea. But
the current was setting them steadily along, parallel with the reef,
and every now and then a sea would tumble aboard and nearly fill her
again. At last, however, theSavage Islanders got her somewhat free of
water, and called to Pulu and Ridan to get in--there were plenty of
spare canoe-paddles secured along the sides in case of an emergency
such as this.
'Get in, Pulu, get in,' said Rfdan to the Samoan, in English; 'get in quickly.'
But Pulu refused. He was a bigger and a heavier man than Rfdan, he
said, and the boat was not yet able to bear the weight of a fourth
man. This was true, and the supercargo, though he knew the awfulrisk
the men ran, and urged them to jump in andpaddle, yet knew that the
additional weight of two such heavy men as Rfdan and Pulu meant death
to all, for every now and thena leaping sea would again fill the boat
to the thwarts.
And then suddenly, amid the crashing sound of the thundering rollers
on the reef, Ridan raised his voice in an awful shriek.
' Quick! Pulu, quick! Some shark hav' come. Get in, get in first,' he
said in his broken English. And as he spoke he grasped the gunwale
with both hands and raised his head and broad shoulders high out of
the water, and a bubbling, groan-like soundissued from his lips.
In an instant the big Samoan swung himself into the boat, and Von
Hammer called to Ridan toget in also.
'Nay, oh, white man!' he answered, in a strange choking voice, 'let me
stay here and hold to the boat. We are not yet safe from the reef. But
paddle, paddle... quickly!'
In another minute or two the boat was out of danger, and then Ridan's
voice was heard.
'Lift me in,' he said quietly, 'my strength is spent.'
:->/ - - - :-> Transtors:
1.http://free-translation.imtranslator.net/lowres.asp
2.http://translate.google.com/m?twu=1&hl=en&vi=m&sl=auto&tl=en

8c] Short Stories - ''Ridan the Devil''

8c]
at Vailele and Mulifanua, and Ridan alone was left. He was glad of this, for thewhite men on board had been kind to him, and he began to hope that he would be taken back to On阛ta. But that night he was brought ashore by the captain to a house where many white men were sitting together, smoking and drinking. They all looked curiously at him and addressed him in many island tongues, and Ridan smiled and shook his head and said, 'Me Ridan; me On阛ta.'
'Leave him with me, K黨ne,' said Burton to the captain of the brig. 'He's the best and biggest man of the lotyou've brought this trip. I'llmarry him to one of my wife's servants, and he'll live in clover down at Mulifanua.'
So early next morning Rfdan was put in a boat with many other new 'boys,' and he smiled with joy, thinking he was going back to the ship--and On阛ta. But when the boat sailed round Mulinu's Point, and the spars of the Iserbrook were suddenly hidden by the intervening line of palm trees, a cry of terror burst from him, and he sprang overboard. He was soon caught, though he dived and swam like a fish. And then two wild-eyed Gilbert Islanders held him by the arms, and laughed as he wept and kept repeating, 'On隺ta, On隺ta.'
* * * * *
From that day began his martyrdom. He worked hard under his overseer, but ran away again and again, only to be brought back and tied up. Sometimes, as he toiled, he would look longingly across the narrow strait of sunlit water at the bright green little island of Manono, six miles away; and twice he stole down to the shore at night, launched a canoe and paddled over towards it. But each time the plantation guard-boat brought him back; and then Burton put him in irons. Once he swam the whole distance, braving the sharks, and, reaching the island, hid in a taro swamp till the next night. He meant to steal food and a canoe--and seek for On隺ta. But the Manono people found him, and, though he fought desperately, they overcame and bound him, and the women cursed him for a T鈌ito{*} devil, a thieving beast, and beat and pelted him as the mencarried him back to the plantation, tied up like a wild boar, to get their ten dollars reward for him from the manager. And Burton gave him thirty lashes as a corrective.
* The Samoans apply the term 'T鈌ito' to all natives of the Gilbert Group and other equatorial islands. The word is an abbreviation of Taputeauea (Drummond's Island), and 'T鈌ito' is synonymous for 'savage'--in some senses.
Then came long, long months of unceasing toil, broken only by attempts to escape, recapture, irons and more lashes. The rest of the native labourers so hated and persecuted him that at last the man's nature changed, and he became desperate and dangerous. No one but Burton dared strike him now, for he would spring at an enemy's throat like amadman, and half stranglehim ere he could be dragged away stunned, bruised and bleeding. When his day's slavery was over he would go to his hut, eat his scanty mealof rice, biscuit and yam in sullen silence, and brood and mutter to himself. But from the day of his first flogging no word ever escaped his set lips. All these things he told afterwards to Von Hammer, the supercargo of the Mindora , when she came to Mulifanua with a cargo of new 'boys.'{*}
* Polynesian labourers are generally termed 'boys.'
Von Hammer had been everywhere in the North Pacific, so Burton took himto Ridan's hut, and called to the 'sulky devil' to comeout. He came, and sullenly followed the two men intothe manager's big sitting-room, and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The bright lamplight shone fullon his nude figure and the tangle of black hair that fell about his now sun-darkened back and shoulders. And, as on that other evening long before,when he sat crouching over his fire, his eyes sought Burton's face with a look of implacable hatred.
'See if you can find out where the d--d brute comes from,' said Burton.
Von Hammer looked at Ridan intently for a minute, and then said one or two words to him in a tongue that the overseer had never before heard.
With trembling limbs and a joyful wonder shining in his dark eyes, Rfdan crept up to the supercargo, and then, in a voice of whispered sobs, he told histwo years' tale of bitter misery.
* * * * *
'Very well,' said Burton, an hour later, to Von Hammer,'you can take him. I don't want the brute here. But he is a dangerous devil, mind. Where do you say he comes from?'
'On阛ta--Saint David's Island--a little bit of a sandy atoll, as big as Manono over there, and much like it, too. I know the place well--lived there once when I was pearling, ten years ago. I don't thinkthe natives there see a white man more than once in five years.
:->/ - - - :-> Transtors: 1.http://free-translation.imtranslator.net/lowres.asp 2.http://translate.google.com/m?twu=1&hl=en&vi=m&sl=auto&tl=en