KR

How great is what the grave has embraced, And how great what its stones have covered. They envied him for virtues they could not attain, So they schemed against him, burning with rage. They were idle when it came to emulating him, Yet energetic in harming him. To imprison a pearl within a shell is its honour, And for the Shaykh, prison itself was delight. […]

Ibn Taymiyyah rose to defend the Law, As the leader of Taym rose when Muḍar transgressed. He unveiled truth when its signs had faded, And extinguished evil when its sparks flared. We spoke of an Imam who would one day come— You are the long-awaited Imam.

How can the chroniclers describe him When his attributes surpass all enumeration? He is Allah’s conclusive proof, The wonder of the age among us. […]

Some loud mouths sought to tarnish his honour, The very ones who drank from his ocean of pearls. Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad was the finest of scholars; Through him, obscure difficulties were resolved. He died alone, imprisoned, Having taken no pleasure from the world. Had they been present at his death, They would have seen angels of bounty surrounding him. […]

The Mughal period illustrates this vividly. Many rulers were new Muslims, unfamiliar with Islamic norms. Shiʿite influence spread through institutions, Sufi lodges, and political authority, marginalising Qurʾān and Sunnah in favour of legends and hagiography. Scholars such as Abū al‑Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī and Sayyid Sulaymān Nadwī documented an era in which religious discourse became saturated with stories of saints while foundational knowledge was neglected. Shāh Walīyullāh recognised both the necessity of spiritual purification and the dangers of its corruption. He sought to reform Sufism, not abolish it, restoring it to its Qurʾānic and Prophetic foundations. Later scholars, particularly Ashraf ʿAlī Thānvī, carried this project forward in accessible language. This, and only this, is the enduring role of scholars in every age. Yet today, vanity culture has re‑emerged. Spiritual authority is treated as property, disciples are monopolised, and allegiance is enforced. Wealth, prestige, and exclusivity now shape spiritual travel and leadership. True spirituality, which once flourished in poverty and humility, is increasingly eclipsed by opulence and self‑promotion. History bears witness that corruption among religious elites is the primary cause of communal decline. The Prophet ﷺ warned that scholars would follow the path of the Children of Israel—and the parallels are unmistakable. When wealth and status infiltrate religious leadership, guidance diminishes in proportion. Despite this bleak assessment, there remains hope. The legacy of Shāh Walīyullāh and the sacrifices of generations cannot be erased. Ultimately, only the Qurʾān, Sunnah, and the lived example of the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions will endure. Vanity‑driven spirituality will fade, as it always has. The responsibility now rests upon contemporary scholars—particularly among the Deobandis—to abandon personality worship and return to the foundational path. And for Allah, this return is never difficult.

For nearly two centuries following Shāh ʿAbd al‑ʿAzīz Dihlawī, no scholar matched Gangohī in depth and insight. As the spiritual guide of towering figures such as Khalīl Aḥmad Sahāranpūrī, Ashraf ʿAlī Thānvī, Ḥusayn Aḥmad Madanī, and Ilyās Kandhalwī, his words carried exceptional weight. These remarks were made in the final days of his life, giving them the force of lived testimony rather than abstract theory. In a few sentences, he encapsulated the historical trajectory of Sufism with remarkable precision. Indeed, alongside legitimate Sufi lineages, history records numerous heterodox and outright unlawful movements—such as the Madārīs, Rawshanīs, Ḥulūlīs, Ḥallājīs, Qalandarīs, and Malāmatīs. Even within sound chains, negligence and exaggeration among later followers produced widespread harm. In the Indian subcontinent, figures such as Khwājah Muʿīn al‑Dīn Ajmerī embodied authentic piety and strict adherence to the Sharīʿah. Yet today, many shrines associated with such figures have become centres of innovation and polytheistic practice. The pattern is consistent: corruption enters through exaggerated reverence for personalities. Within a few generations, admirers transform saints into instruments of worldly gain, to the extent that lawful earning is abandoned and overtly unlawful consumption is justified in their names. No one fought innovation, cultural accretions, and Shiʿite influence more vigorously than Aḥmad Sirhindī. Yet within three generations of his death, members of his own lineage began claiming the title of Qayyūm, asserting cosmic authority over creation. Works such as Rawḍat al‑Qayyūmiyyah describe the Qayyūm as the axis upon which the universe turns, attributing to him control over divine attributes, celestial bodies, natural phenomena, and even the unfolding of time itself. Such claims are not subtle deviations; they represent the culmination of unchecked exaggeration in reverence. This is the inevitable outcome of extremism in trust and personality‑centred devotion. Scholars therefore bear a grave responsibility: to protect the intellectual and spiritual integrity of ordinary believers. Mawlānā Muḥammad Yūsuf Kandhalwī once observed that those who recognise Allah through His manifest power—reviving the dead, sustaining ships upon the seas, holding the heavens aloft—develop faith as firm as mountains. By contrast, those captivated by esoteric disclosures and miraculous displays fall prey to self‑importance. Such people, he warned, would ultimately follow the Antichrist, who will dazzle them with precisely these spectacles. The task of scholars, then, is to redirect the masses toward authentic religious action rather than spiritual entertainment. Other domains—education, daʿwah, even organised preaching—have suffered corruption, but none has inflicted damage comparable to that caused by distorted Sufism. Its excesses lead directly to innovation and polytheism, often under the banner of good intentions: commemorative gatherings, ritualised reward‑transfer, or public recitations for those unable to understand Arabic. After Shāh Walīyullāh, the primary occupations of the scholars were teaching, purification, authorship, and reform. Remembrance and reflection existed only as supporting tools. Their lives revolved around Qurʾān, ḥadīth, and fiqh, grounded in a deep understanding of the Companions. Consequently, alien practices could not survive in their presence. Only when genuine knowledge declined did cultural habits creep in and become entrenched. In recent decades, however, a dangerous imbalance has emerged. Islam is increasingly presented through the lens of later elders rather than through the Qurʾān, Sunnah, and the Companions. While the methods of the elders are valuable, they are not legally binding upon the Ummah. When personal spiritual frameworks are imposed upon the masses, the historical pattern repeats itself: religion degenerates into personality worship, exaggeration, and custom.

One of the most fundamental services scholars render to the Muslim community is the preservation of religious balance. Their task is to ensure that no form of extremism—whether in belief, practice, or reverence—takes root within the religion. Through this supervision, the integrity of Islam is safeguarded, and the community is protected from deviation from the straight path. This responsibility has always required vigilance and restraint. The actions of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb exemplify this principle: his decision to cut down the tree under which the Pledge of Riḍwān was taken, and his statement to the Black Stone—“You are only a stone; you can neither benefit nor harm”—were both expressions of profound religious caution. History repeatedly demonstrates that even sincere devotion, when left unchecked, can drift into excess. Aurangzeb, whom the renowned scholar Shaykh al-Ṭanṭāwī described as the Sixth Rightly Guided Caliph, placed immense trust in the spiritual legacy of Aḥmad Sirhindī. Some even described him as a spiritual disciple of Khwājah Muḥammad Maʿṣūm Fārūqī. His reverence for the family of the Mujaddid was such that after the conquest of Golconda, he married one daughter of the defeated ruler to his own son and another to a grandson of Aḥmad Sirhindī. Among the books he treasured most were Maktūbāt‑e Mujaddid and the Dīwān of Ḥāfiẓ, which he kept by his bedside. Yet despite his personal devotion, Aurangzeb once ordered the governor of Aurangabad to prohibit the public study of these works, recognising that portions of their content lay beyond the comprehension of the general public. This decision reflects a critical principle: what may benefit the elite can harm the masses if presented without discernment. This concern is echoed in a striking report recorded in Arwāḥ‑e Thalāthah regarding Ḥaḍrat Rashīd Aḥmad Gangohī. During a journey from Saharanpur to Rampur, he remarked with unusual frankness that no group had harmed the religion as much as the Sufis—not out of malice, but through excess. According to him, their influence had negatively affected theology, religious practice, moral action, and intellectual outlook. He explained that the Companions possessed such spiritual strength through the direct influence of the Prophet ﷺ that even the most hardened disbelievers could attain excellence merely by embracing faith. They required neither elaborate spiritual exercises nor prolonged struggle, as the effects of prophetic companionship were already embedded within them. This spiritual intensity diminished gradually among the Successors and the generations that followed. To compensate for this loss, later pious individuals developed structured spiritual disciplines. Initially, these were merely means to an end. Over time, however, they became ends in themselves. As generations drifted further from the Prophetic age, these practices multiplied, and through them entered countless theological, practical, and ideological innovations. While great reformers among the Sufis worked tirelessly to remove these corruptions, their efforts only reduced them; they did not eliminate them entirely. Gangohī specifically cited figures such as ʿAbd al‑Qādir al‑Jīlānī, Shihāb al‑Dīn Suhrawardī, Aḥmad Sirhindī, and Sayyid Aḥmad as sincere reformers whose achievements, though significant, ultimately fell short of restoring full balance.