Civility in the Enchanted City: The Malfūzāt of Ḥażrat Niẓāmuddīn Awliyā’

Abstract

Civility has been variously described as a social norm, an attitude, even a virtue. The wide variety of ascriptions attached to it indicate as much its versatility as its indispensability for the construction of a sustainable society. Yet how widespread is civility, across history and societies? This is a question that attempts to wean the concept off its often-Eurocentric conceptualization, wherein civility was tied to the ‘civilizing process’ described and championed by Norbert Elias. This article undertakes a study of civility in a very different social context, by zooming onto the Chishti khānqāh of Ḥażrat Niẓāmuddīn Awliyā’ in early thirteenth century India. The underlying contention is that civility in this milieu was expressed through the key Sufi vocabulary of adab, futuwwa and gharīb nawazi, it was not tied to the civilizing process of a Leviathan State. Rather, it was the individual moral self, trained and elevated by a charismatic Shaykh, aided by the comradeship of the khānqāh, and grounded in a world that was resolutely ‘enchanted’ that made the acquisition and solidification of civility a feasible process. This article seeks a sociological examination of that project.

Keywords

• Civility
• Sufism
• adab
• futuwwa
• civilizing process

Efsunlu Şehirde Edep: Nizâmeddîn Evliyâ’nın Melfûzât’ı

Öz

Edep, kimi zaman sosyal bir norm, bir tavır ve hatta bir fazilet olarak çeşitli şekillerde tanımlamıştır. Kavrama atfedilen tanımların çeşitliliği, onun, sürdürülebilir bir toplumun inşası adına vazgeçilmezliğine olduğu kadar çok yönlülüğüne de işaret etmektedir. Peki ama edep tarihte ve toplumlar arasında ne denli yaygındır? Bu soru, edebin Nobert Elias tarafından tanımlanan ve savunulan “medenileşme süreci” ile ilişkilendirildiği, kavramın ekseriyetle Avrupa merkezli bir kavramsallaştırmadan sıyrılmasını sağlamaya çalışan bir sorudur. Bu makale, oldukça farklı bir sosyal bağlamda, on üçüncü yüzyıl başlarında Nizâmüddin Evliyâ’nın Hindistan’daki hankahı özelinde edep kavramını mercek altına almaya çalışmaktadır. Çalışmada ileri sürülen fikir, belirtilen sosyal çevredeki edebin, Leviathan devlet tipi bir medenileşme sürecine bağlı olmaktan ziyade, âdâb ü erkân, fütüvvet ve garib-nüvâzlık (garipleri gözetme, kollama; onlara hoş davranma, gönüllerini alma) gibi temel tasavvufî terminoloji aracılığıyla ifade edildiğidir. Bilakis, edebin kazanılmasını ve pekiştirilmesini uygulanabilir bir süreç haline getiren şey, hankahtaki ihvan kardeşliğinin desteğine ve hankah içinde kararlı bir biçimde sürdürülen “efsunlu” bir dünyaya dayanarak, etki sahibi bir mürşidin terbiyesi altında tekamül eden bireysel ahlâkî benliktir. Bu makale, söz konusu uygulamanın sosyolojik bir incelemesini amaçlamaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Edep
• tasavvuf
• âdâb
• fütüvvet
• medenileşme süreci

References

1. al-Attas, Syed Muhammad Naquib. Islam and Secularism. Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1993.
2. al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥamīd. The Beginning of Guidance. London: White Thread Press, 2010.
3. ---, Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul: Kitāb Riyādat al-nafs & on Breaking the Two Desires: Kitāb Kasr al-shahwatayn: Books XXII and XXIII of the Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-din). 2nd Edition.
4. Translated by Timothy Winter. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Soicety, 2016.
5. al-Iṣfahānī, Raghib. Mufradāt al-alfāẓ al-Qur’ān. Deoband: Darul Ma‘arif, 1993.
6. al-Jawziyya, Ibn Qayyim. Madārij al-Sālikīn (Ranks of the Divine Seekers). Vol. 2. Leiden: Brill, 2020.
7. al-Qushayrī, Abu’l-Qāsim. Al-Qushayri’s Epistle on Sufism. Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 2007.
8. al-Suyūtī, Jalāl al-Dīn. n.d. Muʿ jam Maqālīd al-ʿUlūm fī l-Ḥudūd wa-l-Rusūm. Hawramani.com. Accessed August 2023. http://arabiclex￾icon.hawramani.com/%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%85/.

9. Baranī, Ziāuddīn. Tārikh-i-Firoz Shahi.Translated by Ishtiyaq Ahmad Zilli. New Delhi: Primus Books, 2015. Baumgarten, Britta, Dieter Gosewinkel, and Rucht Dieter. “Civility: introductory Notes on the History and Systematic Analysis of A Concept.” European Review of History: Revue europeenne d’histoire 18, 3(2011): 289-312.
10. Berlin, Isaiah. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty, by Isaiah Berlin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
11. Bilgrami, Akeel. “What is Enchantment?” In Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, edited by Michael Warner, Jonathan Antwerpen and Craig Calhoun, 145-165. London: Harvard University Press, 2010. ---, Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment. London: Harvard University Press, 2014.
12. Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
13. ---, Sociology in Question. London: Sage, 1993.
14. Deleuze, Giles and Félix Guattari. What is Philosophy? Translated by H. Tomlinson and G. Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
15. Green, Nile. “Between Texts and Territories: An Introduction.” In Making Space: Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012.
16. Hallaq, Wael. The Impossible State. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
17. Khaldūn, Ibn. The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005.
18. Khan, Pasha M. The Broken Spell: Indian Storytelling and the Romance Genre in Persian and Urdu. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2019.
19. King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and “The Mystic East”. New York: Routledge, 2013.
20. Lapidus, Ira. “Knowledge; Virtue, and Action: The Classical Muslim Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious Fulfilment in Islam.” In Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, edited by Barbara Metcalf. California: University of California Press, 1984.
21. Murad, Abdal Hakim, interview by S. Razi Shaikh. 2018. “Taqwa in An Age of Distractions,” Islamic Horizons, November 2018: 28-9. https://issuu.com/isnacreative/docs/ih_november-december_18. —Becoming Living Things. Cambridge Muslim College. Cambridge, June 9, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbyBx-uivSw, (accessed June 11, 2022).
22. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. “Introduction.” In Morals for the Heart: Conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya, by Bruce Lawrence. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.
23. Rosenthal, Franz. “The Stranger in Medieval Islam.” Arabica 44, 1(1997): 35-75. Accessed August 24, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/sta￾ble/4057269.
24. Salvatore, Armando. The Sociology of Islam: Knowledge, Power and Civility. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
25. Sijzī, Amir Hasan. Fawaid al-Fuʾad. New Delhi: M.R. Publishers, 2007.
26. ---, Morals for the Heart: Conversations of Shaykh Nizam ad-din Awliya recorded by Amir Hasan Sijzi as Fawa’id al-Fuʾad. Translated by Bruce Lawrence. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.
27. Simmel, George. On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971.
28. Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.
29. von Hees, Syrinx. “The Astonishing: a Critique and Re-reading of Ajā’ib Literature.” Middle Eastern Literatures 8, 2 (2005): 101-120.
30. Wan Daud, Wan Mohd Nor. Al-Attas’ Concept of Ta‘dib as True and Comprehensive Education in Islam – Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud. December 19, 2009. Accessed July 7, 2021. https://seekersguidance.org/articles/general-artices/al-attas-concept-of-tadib-as￾true-and-comprehensive-education-in-islam￾wan-mohd-nor-wan-daud/.
31. Zadeh, Lotfi Asker. “The Concept of A Linguistic Variable and Its Application to Approximate Reasoning—I.” Information sciences 8, 3 (1975): 199-249.
32. Zadeh, Travis. “The Wiles of Creation: Philosophy, Fiction, and the ‘Ajā’ib Tradition.” Middle Eastern Literatures 13, 1 (2010): 21-48