The Order That Made Music a Path, and Kept Away from the Court

The Chishtiyya is the most important Sufi order of the Indian subcontinent, and it is defined by two things that go together: devotional music, and distance from the state.

Sama and qawwali

The Chishtis are known above all for their devotional use of music and ecstatic listening, the sama, from which the qawwali tradition grew. This is not incidental decoration but a recognised method of the order, and it is one of the practices that other, more sober orders reject. The shrine of Muin al-Din Chishti at Ajmer is the most visited Muslim pilgrimage site in the subcontinent, and the qawwali sung there and at other Chishti shrines is inseparable from the devotion.

Poverty and distance from rulers

The order teaches a spirituality of poverty and of hospitality open to all regardless of religion, and, as a matter of principle, distance from rulers and state patronage. A line of great masters, among them Nizam al-Din Auliya of Delhi, made the order central to the spread of Islam and to Indo-Muslim culture precisely by keeping it apart from the court, so that its authority rested on sanctity and open hospitality rather than on political favour, which is the opposite of the Naqshbandi posture.