As a part of the Islamic service gentry and given their proximity to Nawabganj, then a lively cultural centre, the Kidwais operated beyond the local boundaries, transmitting ilm-e deen (knowledge of Islam) through madaris, mosques, and kanqahs, and providing a local Muslim as well as secular leadership. Doubtless, nascent revivalist assertions and the temple-mosque dispute in 1855 at Hanumangarhi in Ayodhya had heightened Hindu-Muslim consciousness and led to the intervention of the king’s troops under Captain Barlowe near Rudauli. Nevertheless, pluralism, no matter how amorphous, played a significant part in Awadh, both generally and at the qasba level in particular. It is true that religious attributions were by no means uncommon, but more often than not they were banners under which different economic and social groups organized themselves. The point to stress is that their motives had little to do with religion. The occasions when qasba society actually got polarized along the lines of religion were relatively rare.
The gentry’s patronage and the common man’s veneration of Muslim shrines and holy men enhanced, undoubtedly, the qasba’s solidarity as a unique entity. In some ways, the qasbas shaped Lucknow much more than the other way round. Admittedly, divisions existed; for example, intermarriage across religious communities remained difficult and rare, and marks of distinction manifested in the details of dress and food as expressions of personal, familial, caste, and religious taste and identity. Negative social stereotypes and attitudes regarding the other religious group also continued; but specific strategies evolved by individuals enabled them to avoid conflict whilst interacting in mixed social contexts.
Friendship, cooperation and coexistence characterized daily interaction between the followers of Islam and Hinduism. Peasant and craftsmen created bonding through festivals, melas, and shared religious traditions, wheres gentry families, conscious of having fashioned a civilized world as apposed to the chicanery, huckstering, and manipulative materialism of city life, interacted with one another in the high tradition of a specifically Indo-Persian culture. Sharp social divisions and cultural fragmentation marked the city; consequently, the qasba people invoked their unity of experience. What enabled them to do this was the predominance of a typically Awadhi culture expressed through an Awadhi dialect, spoken in Sandila and in Unao, Lucknow, and Sitapur districts. As the temple bells rang and the muezzin’s cadences floated in the air, one of Rudauli’s prominent service families celebrated Basant and Diwali with much fanfare. Among such families there existed a much longer tradition, provided both by structural and liminal artifacts, of aiding the process of acculturation and extending its reach among the masses.
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Excerpted from “Pluralism to Seperatism Qasbas in Colonial Awadh”
Mushirul Hasan – Oxford University Press
Qazi Akhi Jamshed (I/10) He was from the village of Rahra Mau, about 6 km from Baragaon, where his great-grandfather, Qazi Abdul Latif, son of Qazi Jalal Uddin, had settled. Qazi Jamshed left his home at a very early age and went to attend on Makhdoom Jalal Uddin Jahania Jahangasht, one of the most revered sufis of his times. After spending about 12 years in this service, Qazi Jamshed became his Murid. His association with his Pir was so close that Makhdoom Jahania Jahangasht called him Akhi, or friend, which became a permanent prefix to Qazi Jamshed’s name. One Makhdoom Sahib was so impressed with Qazi Akhi’s knowledge and perfection that he gave him a Khirqa and advised him to go and settle at Kannauj. Qazi Jamshed left Uchch and stayed at Kannauj for sometime. But due to congestion and unhealthy surroundings of the area, he shifted to a suburb of the town known as Rajgir, which is at the banks of the river Ganga.
Qazi Akhi Jamshed was of very pure habits and did not have any superficiality or worldly feelings. His virtues were his exhaustive devotion to the Almighty, his high ideals, complete contentment with the surroundings and extensive powers of enacting miraculous deeds. Due to his extreme holiness and piety, Kings, Nawabs and other elites used to visit him for fulfillment of their desires. A few of them became his murids as well. Khwaja-i-Jahan, who established an independent Kingdom of Jaunpur, visited Qazi Jamshed frequently, and it is said that due to blessings of Qazi Jamshed, he was able to carve out an empire for himself. The story goes that Khwaja Jehan, when he was at Delhi, visited Makhdoom Jahania Jahangasht and asked for his blessings. Makhdoom Sahib, in turn, told his disciple Qazi Jamshed to request these blessings. Qazi Sahib asked Khwaja Jehan to raise his hands for prayers and asked him to say what he wanted. While listening to his desires, Qazi Jamshed blessed him to become an independent King.
Qazi Akhi Jamshed was very popular in the masses. People living around Rajgir loved him. It is mentioned in Mirat-ul-Israr that once during Holi, a festival observed with vigor and enthusiasm in the whole of northern India, a crowd of village folk came to Qazi Akhi and started dancing and singing in front of him. Qazi Sahib also got into the mood of ‘Jazb’, (trance) and joined in dancing. He kept on dancing for about three days without any break and without taking food or water. This activity was not appreciated by his disciples, who considered dancing and singing with infidels to be against the tenets of their religion. They reported this matter to the King of Jaunpur, who did not pay any heed to it and took it lightly, saying that possibly it was a way of expressing one’s gratitude to God at the time of Holi. His stature could also be judged by the fact that Sheykh Kamal Uddin Laharpuri, himself a very renowned Auliya, used to receive instructions in his dreams from Qazi Akhi Jamshed. Once he was told to build an apartment for his wife, and he complied. This place became Sheykh Kamal’s resting place when he died.
Sheykh Noor Uddin, a nephew (son of his sister, Sakina) of Qazi Akhi became his Khalifa. The exact date of Qazi Sahib’s demise is not known. Sheykh Abdur Rehman Chishti says that he could not find out the date of his death, but it is definite that Akhi Jamshed was alive through the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Sharqi, who died in 844 H. Therefore, the date of Qazi Sahib’s death could be somewhere around 860 H. Other sources mention the date as 11 Shawwal 801 H, which seems incorrect. There is an interesting story mentioned in Mirat-ul-Kaunain about the day of his death. It says that Akhi Jamshed died on Monday, the 10 Shawwal, and when the body was being taken for burial, an old woman who lived nearby stated wailing “how Akhi Jamshed, being such a perfect saint, could die on Monday, which was supposed to be inauspicious day”. Hearing this, Akhi Jamshed peeked through the ‘Kafan’ and said “Alright if this day is inauspicious for you, then I will live for one more day”. Akhi Jamshed remained alive that day and died the next day. How far it is true is left to the readers to ponder. He is buried at Rajgir, in the district of district Kannauj.
[Biographical sketch of Kidwais of Avadh : with special reference to Barabanki families pub. 1989
by Riaz-ur-Rehman Kidwai, out of print]
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 Sheykh 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]
Kidwai has an alternative spelling of Qidwai, you will see the two interchanged
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GENEALOGY OF QAZI MOIZ UDDIN :
Available chronicles show that Qazi Qidwa’s lineage (henceforth, this short name, which is more popular, will be used) connects him to Hazrat Adam, and rightly so, since Muslims believe that mankind started its existence on this earth when Adam and his wife were deported from heaven. Thus the available chronicles show the lineage connecting Qazi Qidwa to Hazrat Adam. The accuracy of these Shijras is very difficult to establish. Some of them put Qazi Qidwa in the 54th generation from Hazrat Adam, some at the 57th generation. These Shijras agree with one another until the appearance of Hazrat Yaqub aleh es Salaam, grandson of Hazrat Ibrahim, whose laqab was Israel. Israel is an Arabic word made up of two syllables–’Isra’ and ‘el’. The first syllable refers to the person who travels during the night, and ‘el’ is only a consonant. How this word was coined for Hazrat Yaqub is described in the Bible in Chapter 27 of Genesis and Qasas-ul-Ambia. It has been said that one day Hazrat Ishaq, the father, asked for some food, which was served by one of his sons. Ishaq, being blind in old age, thought that Aes, his elder son, had served the food, and he therefore blessed him by saying, “You will become the next Prophet”. In reality, it was Hazrat Yaqub, the younger son, who served the food and thus received the blessing. Hazrat Aes was distrurbed when he learned of the blessing, since he, being the elder brother, should rightfully have received his father’s blessing. To diffuse the situation, Hazrat Yaqub andhis family left his father’s house and traveled through the night. This act on the part of Hazrat Yaqub gave him the laqab of Israel. Thus, Bani Israel means “a progeny of Hazrat Yaqub” and nothing more, and the notion that all Bani Israelites are Jews is not correct.
The first deviation in the available Shijras takes place when some of them show the lineage of Qazi Qidwa through Hazrat Yaqub’s elder son Yahuda and others through the younger son, Lava. Again, there are two deviations through the two sons of Yahuda, Oman and Farsam. Thus we have three Shijras: one from Lava, one from Farsam and a third from Omar. The two from Lava and Farsam show Alexander the Great at the sixth generation from Hazrat Moosa and carry on through Salim, shown as a son of Alexander. This seems to be incorrect; it is known that Alexander did not have any progeny, and consequently, his empire was distributed between his generals after his death. There is only one Shijra that is from Hazrat Ibrahim through Hazrat Yaqub, Yahuda and Omar, which probably shows Qazi Qidwa’s lineage correctly. However, w e are still not sure about this because the gap between Prophet Muhammad and Qazi Qidwa is only of six generations, while time period elapsed between the two individuals’ lives is about 6000 years. Therefore, the dynastic lineage through Malik Danishmend Ghazi, who was connected to Saiyed Battal, may be taken as the most likely true genealogy of Qazi Qidwa (See Annexure 11).
[Biographical sketch of Kidwais of Avadh : with special reference to Barabanki families pub. 1989
by Riaz-ur-Rehman Kidwai, out of print]
“By focusing on individual families of the likes of Wilayat Ali Kidwai (in Arabic Kidwai stands for �elevate�) whose forefathers with Turkish origins came to India in the 13th century, Hasan traces the socio-cultural milieu of one of the oldest Muslim families in North India. Qazi Kidwai reached India in 1205 and was responsible for the conversion of many Hindus to Islam. The Kidwais of Juggaur moved to Barabanki and became well-known as Masauli Kidwais. 1856, a turning point in the history of Awadh, witnessed a series of significant changes when Barabanki and Awadh come under British rule. Hasan argues that �qasbas of Awadh were the sites where religious loyalties were more often than not fused with an emerging pan-Indian identity in a seamless web of symbols and sentiments.� He brings out the role of Maulvi Muhammad Zahiruddin whose productive contribution to society led to the opening of schools for women and children.”
I just ordered the above book to give additional insight to my family history. The note of Turkish background is very interesting, I am often confused for being Turkish. Fate would have also connected me to my Sheykh, who is a Turkish Cypriot.
The next few posts will take us on the adventure of my main ancestor, the great Saint of Islam, Qazi Kidwai (Radiallahtallahanhu).
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 