Note 23 — The Fourteenth New Year’s Feast from the Auspicious Accession

This S. Aḥmad is a well-known man. He is mentioned in Beale as Aḥmad Sirhindī (S͟haik͟h), and as having had the title of Mujaddid-i-Alf-i-S̤ānī, because he believed that he was the man of the second millenium. In other words, he claimed to be a Mahdī. He was s. ʿAbdu-l-Wāḥid Fārūqī, and born in 1503. He died 29 November, 1624, and is buried at Sirhind. The I.G. new edition, XXIII. 21., says there are two tombs in Sirhind known as those of the Master and the Disciple, and it may be that one of them is S. Aḥmad’s, although the Gazetteer says they probably belong to the fourteenth century. There is also a reference to him in Rieu’s Catalogue, III. 1058a., fol. 16. He belonged to the Naqs͟hbandī order, and one of his writings is called Majmūʿatu-t-taṣawwuf. There is a very long account of him, and of his interviews with Jahāngīr in the K͟hazīnatu-l-Auliyā, I. 607, etc. It is said there that he was imprisoned for two years, and then released, and that he died on the last day of Ṣafar, 1035, November 20, 1625, at the age of sixty-three. Jahāngīr afterwards pardoned S. Aḥmad. See Tūzuk, 308, account of fifteenth year. ↑