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Even today, these festivals are celebrated and “Neze ke Mele” (Fairs of the Spears) are organised at many places. In the 15 Century, Sikandar Lodi had tried to ban the “festival of the spears” of Masud. In 1341, the famous Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta accompanied Mohammad bin Tughlaq to the Bahraich dargah. Shahid Amin informs us that in a letter of 1290, Amir Khusrau mentions about the “fragrant tomb of Sipahsalar Shahid” at Bahraich spreading the “perfume of odorous wood” throughout Hindustan. Ghazipur, Ghaziabad and Salarkotla that dot many regions of the country are perpetuating his memory.Įver since his legend took shape in the 11th Century, fairs have been organised at various places and historical documents reveal that his fame had reached Bengal by the 14th Century. In Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, his dargah has been an attraction for Hindu and Muslim devotees for nearly 1,000 years and a big fair is organised every year here. Ghazi Miyan is also known as Bale Miyan, Bala Pir, Pir Bahlim and Gajan Dulha although his real name is Syed Salar Masud.
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Isn’t it incredible that this jihadi warrior is worshipped by the very Hindus that he attacked and that Hindu women pray at his tomb for a male child of his noble qualities? Published by Orient BlackSwan in late September, “Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan” brings us face-to-face with a tilism, a veritable phantasmagoria where real and imaginary not only co-exist but also constantly interact with each other, resulting in folklore that perpetuates and celebrates the worship of a folk hero who is a Ghazi (an Islamic warrior or jihadi who does not hesitate to slay infidels and break idols to pieces) and, at the same time, is a protector of cows and cowherds, a brother to a Hindu queen, and a saviour of the honour of virgin daughters of the cowherds. Unlike most tomes by erudite historians, it’s a multi-layered, complex, nuanced and intimate telling of the saga of the legendary Ghazi Miyan as it does not attempt to offer a single interpretation and leaves a lot to the intelligence as well as imagination of the reader. Well, Professor Shahid Amin, who recently retired from Delhi University’s Department of History, has written just that kind of history. He also tells Lakshman that “what we need, as my friend and fellow professor Shahid Amin, whom you knew at college, likes to say, are “non sectarian histories of sectarian strife.” Sarwar mentions that a number of Muslim religious figures such as Nizamuddin Auliya, Moinuddin Chishti, Shah Madar and Shaikh Nasiruddin alias Chiragh-i-Dilli are worshipped by the Hindus and that Ghazi Miyan happens to be in this league. Lakshman that he is “working on the life of a man called Syed Salar Masud Ghazi, popularly known as Ghazi Miyan, a hugely revered Muslim warrior-saint.” He also feels that while a lot is said about the “composite culture of North India”, its “composite religiosity” is not talked about much. In Shashi Tharoor’s novel “Riot”, which liberally makes fictional use of the names of real people and places, Professor Mohammed Sarwar informs V. There is a lot of talk of magical realism in literature but the legend of Ghazi Miyan introduces it in history – past as well as present. India is a land of contradictions and nothing typifies this so starkly as the legend of Ghazi Miyan.