Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī, (born 1564?

, Sirhind, Patiāla, India—died 1624, Sirhind), Indian mystic and

theologian who was largely responsible for the reassertion and revival in India of orthodox Sunnite Islam
as a reaction against the syncretistic religious tendencies prevalent during the reign of the Mughal
emperor Akbar.

Shaykh Aḥmad, who through his paternal line traced his descent from the caliph ʿUmar I (the second
caliph of Islam), received a traditional Islamic education at home and later at Siālkot (now in Pakistan).
He reached maturity when Akbar, the renowned Mughal emperor, attempted to unify his empire by
forming a new syncretistic faith (Dīn-e-Ilāhī), which sought to combine the various mystical forms of
belief and religious practices of the many communities making up his empire.

Shaykh Aḥmad joined the mystical order Naqshbandīyah, the most important of the Indian Sufi orders,
in 1593–94. He spent his life preaching against the inclination of Akbar and his successor, Jahāngīr (ruled
1605–27), toward pantheism and Shīʿite Islam (one of that religion’s two major branches). Of his several
written works, the most famous is Maktūbāt (“Letters”), a compilation of his letters written in Persian to
his friends in India and the region north of the Amu Darya (river). Through these letters Shaykh Aḥmad’s
major contribution to Islamic thought can be traced. In refuting the Naqshbandīyah order’s extreme
monistic position of waḥdat al-wujūd (the concept of divine existential unity of God and the world, and
hence man), he instead advanced the notion of waḥdat ash-shuhūd (the concept of unity of vision).
According to this doctrine, any experience of unity between God and the world he has created is purely
subjective and occurs only in the mind of the believer; it has no objective counterpart in the real world.
The former position, Shaykh Aḥmad felt, led to pantheism, which was contrary to the tenets of Sunnite
Islam.

00:01

02:45

Shaykh Aḥmad’s concept of waḥdat ash-shuhūd helped revitalize the Naqshbandīyah order, which
retained its influence among Muslims in India and Central Asia for several centuries thereafter. A
measure of his importance in the development of Islamic orthodoxy in India is the title that was
bestowed posthumously on him, Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thānī (“Renovator of the Second Millennium”), a
reference to the fact that he lived at the beginning of the second millennium of the Muslim calendar. His
teachings were not always popular in official circles. In 1619, by the orders of the Mughal emperor
Jahāngīr, who was offended by his aggressive opposition to Shīʿite views, Shaykh Aḥmad was
temporarily imprisoned in the fortress at Gwalior. His burial place at Sirhind is still a site of pilgrimage.

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Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

World distribution of Islam.

Islamic world: Continuation of the empire

…of the Naqshbandī ṭarīqah named Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī. With the accession of Aurangzeb (ruled
1658–1707), the tradition of ardent ecumenicism, which would reemerge several centuries later in a
non-Muslim named Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, was replaced with a stricter communalism that
imposed penalties on protected non-Muslims and stressed the shah’s…

Abu Darweesh Mosque

Islam: Impact of modernism

…mystic of Muslim India Aḥmad Sirhindī (flourished 16th–17th centuries)—a reformer who spoke
their language and attacked Ibn al-ʿArabī’s “unity of being” only to defend an older, presumably more
orthodox form of mysticism. Despite some impact, however, attempts of this kind remained isolated and
were either ignored or reintegrated into the…

The Hindu deity Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, mounted on a horse pulling Arjuna, hero of the epic
poem Mahabharata; 17th-century illustration.

Indian philosophy: Mughal philosophy

…was led by Shaykh Aḥmed Sirhindī, who rejected ontological monism in favour of orthodox
unitarianism and sought to channel mystical enthusiasm along Qurʾānic lines. By the middle of the 17th
century, the tragic figure of Dārā Shikōh, the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān’s son and disciple of the
Qādirī Sufis, translated…

Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī, (born 1564?, Sirhind, Patiāla, India—died 1624, Sirhind), Indian mystic and
theologian who was largely responsible for the reassertion and revival in India of orthodox Sunnite Islam
as a reaction against the syncretistic religious tendencies prevalent during the reign of the Mughal
emperor Akbar.

Shaykh Aḥmad, who through his paternal line traced his descent from the caliph ʿUmar I (the second
caliph of Islam), received a traditional Islamic education at home and later at Siālkot (now in Pakistan).
He reached maturity when Akbar, the renowned Mughal emperor, attempted to unify his empire by
forming a new syncretistic faith (Dīn-e-Ilāhī), which sought to combine the various mystical forms of
belief and religious practices of the many communities making up his empire.
Shaykh Aḥmad joined the mystical order Naqshbandīyah, the most important of the Indian Sufi orders,
in 1593–94. He spent his life preaching against the inclination of Akbar and his successor, Jahāngīr (ruled
1605–27), toward pantheism and Shīʿite Islam (one of that religion’s two major branches). Of his several
written works, the most famous is Maktūbāt (“Letters”), a compilation of his letters written in Persian to
his friends in India and the region north of the Amu Darya (river). Through these letters Shaykh Aḥmad’s
major contribution to Islamic thought can be traced. In refuting the Naqshbandīyah order’s extreme
monistic position of waḥdat al-wujūd (the concept of divine existential unity of God and the world, and
hence man), he instead advanced the notion of waḥdat ash-shuhūd (the concept of unity of vision).
According to this doctrine, any experience of unity between God and the world he has created is purely
subjective and occurs only in the mind of the believer; it has no objective counterpart in the real world.
The former position, Shaykh Aḥmad felt, led to pantheism, which was contrary to the tenets of Sunnite
Islam.

00:01

02:45

Shaykh Aḥmad’s concept of waḥdat ash-shuhūd helped revitalize the Naqshbandīyah order, which
retained its influence among Muslims in India and Central Asia for several centuries thereafter. A
measure of his importance in the development of Islamic orthodoxy in India is the title that was
bestowed posthumously on him, Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thānī (“Renovator of the Second Millennium”), a
reference to the fact that he lived at the beginning of the second millennium of the Muslim calendar. His
teachings were not always popular in official circles. In 1619, by the orders of the Mughal emperor
Jahāngīr, who was offended by his aggressive opposition to Shīʿite views, Shaykh Aḥmad was
temporarily imprisoned in the fortress at Gwalior. His burial place at Sirhind is still a site of pilgrimage.

Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription.

Subscribe today

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

World distribution of Islam.

Islamic world: Continuation of the empire

…of the Naqshbandī ṭarīqah named Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī. With the accession of Aurangzeb (ruled
1658–1707), the tradition of ardent ecumenicism, which would reemerge several centuries later in a
non-Muslim named Mohandas K. (Mahatma) Gandhi, was replaced with a stricter communalism that
imposed penalties on protected non-Muslims and stressed the shah’s…
 Abu Darweesh Mosque

Islam: Impact of modernism

…mystic of Muslim India Aḥmad Sirhindī (flourished 16th–17th centuries)—a reformer who spoke
their language and attacked Ibn al-ʿArabī’s “unity of being” only to defend an older, presumably more
orthodox form of mysticism. Despite some impact, however, attempts of this kind remained isolated and
were either ignored or reintegrated into the…

The Hindu deity Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, mounted on a horse pulling Arjuna, hero of the epic
poem Mahabharata; 17th-century illustration.

Indian philosophy: Mughal philosophy

…was led by Shaykh Aḥmed Sirhindī, who rejected ontological monism in favour of orthodox
unitarianism and sought to channel mystical enthusiasm along Qurʾānic lines. By the middle of the 17th
century, the tragic figure of Dārā Shikōh, the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān’s son and disciple of the
Qādirī Sufis, translated…