Al-Hujwiri

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Uthman ibn Ali al-Jullabi, commonly known by the nisba al-Hujwiri and reverentially as Data Ganj Bakhsh, was an 11th-century Islamic scholar and writer. He made a significant contribution both to the spreading of Islam in South Asia.

Life

Ali ibn Uthman ibn Ali ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah ibn Ali ibn Hasan ibn Zayd ibn Hasan ibn Ali is said to be his genealogy. He was born around 990 CE near Ghazni, Afghanistan during the era of the Ghaznavid Kingdom and moved to Lahore in present-day Pakistan in 1077 CE.

Work

His most famous written work is the Kashf al-Mahjub, written in the Persian language. This is one of the earliest and most respected treatises of Sufism in Persian, and it debates Sufi doctrines of the past.

Legacy

Al-Hujwiri was interred in a famous mausoleum in Lahore, which is surrounded by a large marble courtyard, a mosque and other buildings. It is the most frequented of all the shrines in that old city, and indeed one of the most famous in Pakistan and the entire region. He is venerated as the Patron Saint of Lahore, where his name is a household word, and his mausoleum the object of pilgrimage from distant places, by people of all religious beliefs. Along with Khwaja Moin-ud-Din Chishti, Farid-ud-Din Ganj Shakar, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar and Jalal-ud-Din Surkh Bukhari, he is deemed in popular Punjabi literature and culture, as one of the Panj Peer (Five Sages/Holy Ones) who exert mystic control and authority over all of the South Asia.