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The Suhrawardi saint of the hill
A travelled Husayni Sayyid of the Multan Suhrawardi chain
Hazrat Sayyid Shah Muhammad Sharfuddin Suhrawardi — known to every Hyderabadi simply as Baba Sharfuddin Sahab or Pahadi Wale Baba — is the Suhrawardi shaykh of the Bahmani era whose hilltop hospice south of the Musi river became, over six centuries, the most-loved Sufi shrine of Hyderabad. He was a Husayni Sayyid, trained in the Sunni-Hanafi sciences and in the Suhrawardi method through a documented chain reaching back through the great khalifa Baha al-Din Zakariya of Multan to Shaykh Shihab al-Din 'Umar al-Suhrawardi of Baghdad. He travelled extensively in his youth — Makkah, Madina, Iraq, Khorasan, Sindh, the Punjab — before turning south into the Bahmani Deccan.
A hospice on the summit
The spring, the open kitchen, and the Multan Suhrawardi way
What is distinctive about him is the site of his settlement. He chose neither one of the Bahmani capitals nor an established town but a low rocky hill in the open countryside, a day's ride from the village that would become, two centuries later, the city of Hyderabad. He built a small mosque and a hospice on the summit, drew water from a spring on the eastern face of the rock (the spring is still the source of the dargah's baoli), instituted a daily open kitchen for any visitor regardless of faith or station, and lived in the manner of the early Multan Suhrawardis: strict observance of the Sharia, the night vigil, the silent and vocal dhikr, the constant muraqaba, the refusal of state patronage. His traditional date of wisaal is in the late fifteenth century. He asked to be buried on the summit of his hill.
The noble hill
Endowed by Qutb Shahis and Nizams — the everyday spiritual anchor of Hyderabad
The hill — Pahadi Sharif, "the noble hill" — has been a continuous site of pilgrimage in his name ever since. The Qutb Shahis endowed it; Nasir-ud-Daulah, the fourth Nizam, raised its principal dome in white marble in the mid-nineteenth century; the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan built the rail line that brought the southern half of his city to the foot of the stairway. Today the dargah is one of the most-visited Sufi shrines in the southern Deccan and the everyday spiritual anchor of Hyderabad. The phrase "Baba Sahab ka karam" — Baba Sahab's grace — is one of the most-used expressions of the city's spoken Dakhni.
The shrine today
The marble dome, the langar, and the palanquin-bearers of the stairway
The shrine sits today within a fenced complex of about twenty acres on the southern outskirts of Hyderabad, on the Bangalore highway some sixteen kilometres from Charminar. A stairway of one hundred and thirty steps climbs the southern face of the rock; pilgrims who cannot climb are carried up in palanquins by hereditary bearers, a practice three centuries old. The marble dome over the grave is plain by Deccan standards — no carved screen, no inscribed dado — in keeping with the saint's documented dislike of ornament. Around it stand the older Qutb Shahi pavilions, the colonnaded Asaf Jahi gatehouse, the langar kitchen that feeds about two thousand visitors on an ordinary Thursday, and a small mosque that observes the five prayers and the Thursday khatm-i-khwajegan in the Suhrawardi pattern.
The annual juloos and its custodians
One of the three great Sufi gatherings of the south, and an unbroken line of sajjada-nashins
The 'urs — the annual commemoration of the saint's wisaal — is observed in the Islamic month of Rabi-ul-Awwal across three days, with a public procession (juloos) on the second day that moves through the southern wards of Hyderabad and returns to the hill at dusk. It draws between two and three hundred thousand pilgrims and remains, with the urs of Yousufain Sharif and the urs of Bandanawaz at Gulbarga, one of the three great annual Sufi gatherings of the southern Deccan. Outside the urs season, the dargah is open every day, every prayer, with the heaviest pilgrim traffic on Thursday evenings and Friday mornings.
The lineage of sajjada-nashins — the hereditary custodians who direct the prayer-life of the dargah and the langar — has been continuously documented since the eighteenth century. The present custodian belongs to the same Sayyid family that has held the office through the late Asaf Jahi period and the post-1948 transition; the office is recognised by the Telangana State Wakf Board, which administers the property in trust. The dargah is not affiliated with any tariqah revivalist movement and continues to teach the classical Suhrawardi method as it was practised at the Multan and Khuldabad hospices of the medieval centuries: the night vigil, the five prayers, the daily Quran portion, the silent and vocal dhikr of the Suhrawardi litany, and the open kitchen for any visitor.
Baba Sharfuddin Suhrawardi in dates
- c. late 14th c.Born into a Husayni Sayyid family; receives initiation in the Suhrawardi method through a chain descending from Baha al-Din Zakariya of Multan and Shihab al-Din 'Umar al-Suhrawardi of Baghdad.
- c. early 15th c.Undertakes extensive travels in youth — Makkah, Madina, Iraq, Khorasan, Sindh, and the Punjab — deepening learning in the Sunni-Hanafi sciences.
- c. mid 15th c.Arrives in the Bahmani Deccan and, rejecting the established capitals, chooses a low rocky hill south of the Musi river as his seat of retreat.
- c. mid 15th c.Establishes a mosque and hospice on the summit; draws water from a spring on the eastern face of the rock; founds a daily open kitchen for all visitors regardless of faith or station.
- c. late 15th c.Passes away (wisaal) in the late fifteenth century; buried on the summit of his hill at his own request; the spring-fed baoli continues to serve the dargah.
- 1518–1687Qutb Shahi sultans endow the dargah; early Qutb Shahi pavilions and a colonnaded gatehouse are added to the hilltop complex.
- c. 1850sNasir-ud-Daulah, the fourth Nizam, raises the principal dome over the grave in plain white marble — in keeping with the saint's documented dislike of ornament.
- Early 20th c.The seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, constructs the rail line that links the southern districts of Hyderabad to the foot of the shrine stairway.
- AnnualThe 'urs in Rabi-ul-Awwal spans three days; a public procession (juloos) on the second day draws 200,000–300,000 pilgrims, making it one of the three great annual Sufi gatherings of the southern Deccan.
- Post-1948The dargah passes under the administration of the Telangana State Wakf Board; the hereditary sajjada-nashin family continues to lead prayer and langar in the classical Suhrawardi manner.