Sufi reform in eighteenth Century India: Khwaja Mir Dard of Delhi (1721-1785)

This study is an investigation of the Sufi reform of the eighteenth century by means of analyzing the original works of a prominent yet understudied Indian Sufi reformer, Khwaja Mir Dard of Delhi (1721–1785). It considers the relevance of Mir Dard’s Ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyya Khāliṣa (Pure Muhammadan Path) against the backdrop of academic debates on the concept of Sufi reform and argues for a multifaceted transformation in early modern Sufism. The book examines four main characteristics of Mir Drad’s thought, namely criticism of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s unity of being, Prophetocentrism, shari‘atizing Sufism, and a worldly approach, and discovers a shift of emphasis away from the interior, intoxication, fatalism and ascent, toward the exterior, awareness, free will and descent. Employing a hybrid of conceptual-semantic and contextual-historical methodologies, it also shows the constructive role played by the longstanding Hindu-Muslim shared tradition in the reformulations of mystical Islam.