Ahmad Sirhindi

Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624), known to his followers by the honorific titles Imam Rabbani ("the divine leader") and Mujaddid Alf-i Thani ("renewer of the second [Islamic] millennium"), was a Hanafi jurist and a master of the Naqshbandi Sufi order in Mughal India. ("Sufi" refers to the mystical, inward-focused tradition of Islam.) Born at Sirhind in the Punjab, he received his early training at home and studied at Sialkot, then around 1599-1600 was initiated into the Naqshbandi path by Khwaja Baqi Billah, associated with Delhi. The Mujaddidi sub-branch of the Naqshbandi order traces itself to him.

Sirhindi is best known for his Maktubat ("Letters"), a large collection addressed to disciples and officials. In them he is traditionally credited with reasserting Islamic law (shari'a) as the framework for mystical life and with reframing the doctrine of "oneness of being" (wahdat al-wujud) in favor of "oneness of witnessing" (wahdat al-shuhud) — holding that the mystic perceives all as God rather than that all literally is God. Modern scholars debate how central law versus mysticism actually was to him.

Later tradition also credits him with opposing the eclectic religious policies of the emperor Akbar; historians dispute how direct that role was. Under Akbar's successor Jahangir he was imprisoned for a time in the fortress at Gwalior, reportedly over claims attributed to him and court rivalries. He died at Sirhind in 1624, where his shrine remains a place of pilgrimage. His later reputation is itself contested among scholars.