Continuing the description of my ancestor, I have provided this excerpt:
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At least twenty to twenty-five Qidwais have been Sufi Saints of very high status; their biographies have appeared in some of the original works on Sufis and Ulemas of Hindustan. The books were written in Persian as far back as the days of Emperor Shahjehan (Mirat-ul-Israr). These Auliyas were descendants ofQazi Qidwa and had settled from one corner of India, i.e., Sind (now in Pakistan) to the other corner, around Bengal. These saints left their marks on the people in the areas they visited, and Urs ceremonies are regularly held at their tombs even today with great reverence and devotion. These sufis could not be distinguished earlier as Qidwais because writing “Qidwai” as a suffix to their names was not the regular practice in the past, even though the first mention of surname of Qidwai appears in Mirat-ul-Israr. Efforts have therefore been made to isolate these saints from other Sufis and bring descriptions of their lives together in one place so that readers may learn some details about their ancestors. This chapter will therefore give biographical sketches of the renowned Qidwai saints.
Qazi Moiz Uddin, also known as Qazi Qidwatud-Din or Qazi Qidwa. Qazi Qidwa’s exploits as a crusader have already been described in Chapter III. The intention here is to bring out his spiritual standing among the sufis of Hindustan. As mentioned earlier, Qazi Qidwa came to India at the behest of Pir Khwaja Usman Harooni. He came with a mission, to spend the rest of his life in the service of Islam and to help the downtrodden in India by preaching the tenets of the dynamic new faith. This is not an easy task to achieve in a single lifetime, unless an individual has a firm conviction of his own faith and the capacity to bear the negative forces that act against people with such convictions. He must have had some supernatural powers, and his contacts with the needy brought certain worthwhile results. This was necessary in those days, when ordinary human beings were ignorant and isolated from the main stream of the society. The average individual did not have any aptitude to grasp things that were told to him but was receptive to occurrences he observe himself and happenings he could register with his own perception. Sufis therefore had to have some powers to perform extraordinary acts, known as Kashf. These powers were mostly exhibited in the form of healing touches and the warding-off of bad influences.
Therefore, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Qazi Qidwa did posses some extraordinary powers. His adventures in subjugating the local Rajas of Avadh was of special significance because the victories in those battles of Jaggaur and Baragaon are attributed to his spiritualism; his army was always very weak compared to the combined enemy forces.
Hazrat Abdul Nabi has said that Qazi Qidwa, being from Sa’dat, had vast influence on the masses around Ayodhya. The people there were Orthodox Hindus, and even then, they used to flock in hundreds to obtain Qazi Sahib’s blessing. No one will ever know the exact number of people who were converted to Islam by his teaching, but the clan became so large that all neo-converts and Qazi Sahib’s descendants settled themselves in a separate locality known as Qidwai Mohalla. This locality was subsequently eroded by the river, and the inhabitants were forced to move to other parts of the town, which later came to be known as Faizabad.
Tariq Sheikh Abul Fazal Arabi (as quoted in Tariq Abu Said) elaborates on the qualities of Hazrat Qazi Qidwa by attributing to him the titles of Maghzan-i-Haqiqt, Anwar ul Hai, Namantaha-ud Dahar and Sultan-ul-Arifin, etc. Maulana Wajih Uddin Ashraf remembers Qazi Qidwa as Umadat-ul-Abrar, Sargarda-i-Akhbar, Sahib-e-Takhat and Makhzan-ul-Auliya. These titles are not merely decorative; they had real meaning–Qazi Sahib was a renowned sufi saint. These titles seem appropriate when we learn that Qazi Qidwa’s saintly disposition has filtered through the next 600 years and produced more eminent sufis throughout the generations. Unfortunately, Qazi Qidwa died within three years of his stay at Ayodhya and did not have time to establish himself with authority. If he would have lived twenty to thirty years preaching Islam, his name would have be listed along with those of famous sufis like Khwaja Moin Uddin Chishti, Baba Farid Shakarganj, Nizam Uddin Auliya and others.
[Biographical sketch of Kidwais of Avadh : with special reference to Barabanki families pub. 1989
by Riaz-ur-Rehman Kidwai, out of print]
