Thread by @abhilegend000

So many people have requested to share the sufism history in India. This thread will be a detailed description of history of Sufism in India and its role. I will be citing a lot of books and will share details of the books at the end of the thread. Let's begin.

Contrary to popular belief, sufism was mainly introduced in Indian subcontinent for conversion.

""The establishment of Sufi orders in India coincided with the rising political power of Muslims". Muslim Almanac by Azim A.Nanji, page 61

"On paper, the Sultanate seemed to be a perfectly Islamized state (but) religious leaders often of Arab origin and the religion (Islam) were subordinated to the political exigencies of the Turko-Afghans, who were in power"
A History of Modern India by Claude Markovitz, page 30

"No document attests to the peaceful preaching of the Sufis that most defenders of Islam put forward today"
Ibid, page 33

"The attraction exercised by the politico-economic benefits that Islam offered seemed to have been the primary motivation for conversion, which particularly affected the middle strata of society"
Ibid, page 33

"The numerous Sufi religious establishments in India were the major means of spreading Islam and adapting it to indigenous cultural tradition"
Islamic Mysticism in India by Nagendra Kumar Singh

When Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti went to Ajmer with Ghori, who destroyed temples, this is written by Hasan Nizami in Taj ul Maasir.

"The victorious army on the right and on the left departed towards Ajmer’ When the crow-faced Hindus began to sound their white shells on the backs of

the elephants, you would have said that a river of pitch was flowing impetuously down the face of a mountain of blue’ The army of Islam was completely victorious, and a hundred thousand grovelling Hindus swiftly departed to the fire of hell’ He destroyed (at Ajmer) the pillars

and foundations of the idol temples, and built in their stead mosques and colleges, and the precepts of Islam, and the customs of the law were divulged and established"

Next was the era of "Sufi" thinkers like Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Wali Ullah. The mission of Shaikh Sirhindi was to purify Islam from the influence of Akbar with a view to counter his policy of "the Hindu wielding the sword of Islam" and "Peace with all".

He felt that Akbar "sullied the purity of Islam and the political social and cultural life of Muslims" (History of Sufism in India by Saiyied Athar Abbas Rizvi, Page 212)

He strongly criticised freedom of worship granted to the Hindus. Death of Akbar (1605) filled Shaikh Ahmad with hopes that the pristine purity of Islam would be implanted in India" (Sufism in India by Saiyied Athar Abbas Rizvi, Page 204).

Sirhind wrote several letters to the nobles in the court of Jehangir for guiding the emperor on the path of Shariat, and for removal of Qafirs (Shias and Hindus) from the administration.

He was against any honorable status of Hindus in Islamic government. Sirhind wanted the religious freedom enjoyed by the Hindus during Akbar regime to be curbed. Enraged with his too much interference in administration, Jehangir imprisoned him in Gwalior

(A History of Sufism in India by Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, , Page 178)
Despite this anti-Hindu tirade of Sirhindi, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in 1919 eulogiged the role of Mujaddid (Sirhind),"who did not see eye to eye with the policy of state" (Ibid. Page215)

"Sufis were particularly important in achieving the almost total conversion in eastern Bengal." Page 8, Nehemia Levtzion , Toward a Comparative Study of Islamization, in Conversion to Islam

Shah Wali Ullah, another sufi invited Ahmad Shah Abdali to invade India to save muslims from Marathas and Jats. (A History of Sufism in India, Rizvi, Page 259)

The Muslim ruler under the influence of the doctrine of Shah Wali Ullah patronised Islamic learning and "took away the administrative and economic power that had passed into the hands of Hindus" (Islamic Mysticism in India by Nagendra Kumar Singh, Page 185)

Sayyid Ahmad Barelavi, a disciple of Abd al Aziz, (the son of Shah Wali Ullah) continued the tradition of Waliullah by synthesising the three major Sufi orders" (The Sufi orders in Islam by Spencer Trimingham, Oxford, 1971, Page 129)

He launched armed jehad against the non-Muslims but was killed in the battle of Balkot against Sikh leader Ranjit Singh.

Karamat Ali, a disciple of Sayed Ahmad Barelavi further developed the ideology for purifying Islam from the influences of Hindu custom and tradition.

"His work largely paved the way for the establishment of the organisation which has more recently been developed under the name of Ahl-I-Hadith" (Indian Islam by Murray T Titus, 1979, Page 186)

Even Sayed Ahmad Khan was a follower of the neo-Sufi cult of Shah Waliullah. According to Allama Iqbal, "he (Wali Ullah) was the first Muslim to feel the urge for rethinking the whole system of Islam without in any way breaking away from its past"

(The Sufi Orders in Islam by J. Spencer Trimingham, Oxford, 1971, Page 198).

That's a concise history of sufism in India. Its a totally bogus perception that Sufism tried to unify the Hindu-Muslim spirituality for a communal harmony.

Recommended reading:
A Book of Conquest, Mannan Ali Arif
Islamic Jihad, A legacy of Imperialism, Forced conversions and Slavery, M A Khan
The State and Religion in Mughal India, Roy Choudhury ML
Sufis and anti-Sufis by Elizabeth Surriyeh

History of Sufism in India by Saiyied Athar Abbas Rizvi
Islamisation of India by Sufis, Purushottam
Nehemia Levtzion , Toward a Comparative Study of Islamization, in Conversion to Islam
Nehemia Levtzion, Conversion to Islam