ḤAMID QALANDAR

 

ḤAMID QALANDAR (d. Delhi, 768/1366), author of Ḵayr al-majāles, the obiter dicta (malfuẓāt) of the Češti shaikh Naṣir-al-Din Maḥmud Čerāḡ-e Dehli (q.v.). Ḥamid’s father, Tāj-al-Din of Kilugarhi, got him admitted at a young age into the circle of the disciples of Shaikh Neẓām-al-Din Awliāʾ, where he shaved his head and beard, put on saffron clothes, and adopted the antinomian life of a qalandar (carefree, wandering dervish).

When Sultan Moḥammad b. Toḡloq ordered the mass transfer of the Muslim population of Delhi to the Deccan, Ḥamid took the journey and wrote poems in praise of the new capital Dawlatābād. He attached himself to Shaikh Borhān-al-Din Ḡarib, whose discourses he under-took to compile, but the death of the shaikh cut the work short. In 754/1353 he returned to Delhi, where he was attracted to Shaikh Naṣir-al-Din Čerāḡ-e Dehli’s ḵānaqāh. A year later he began recording the obiter dicta of the Shaikh that was written after the style of the Fawāʾed al-foʾād of Amir Ḥasan Sejzi. It was completed in a year and was revised and approved by Shaikh Naṣir-al-Din himself. Ḵayr al-majāles, written in plain Persian (ed. K. A. Nizami, Aligarh, 1959), is divided into twelve chapters (majles) and a supplement (takmela) that was added by the author after the death of Shaikh Naṣir-a-Din in 757/1356. It is remarkable for its accurate, detailed information, and ranks second only to the Fawāʾed among the malfuẓāt literature.

Ḥamid had a fairly good knowledge of the Koran and Hadith and also wrote poetry, judged to be of mediocre quality.

 

Bibliography:

ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy Ḥasani, Nozhat al-ḵawāṭer wa bahjat al-masāmeʿ wa’l-nawāẓer II, Hyderabad, 1931-70, pp. 37-38.

Fażl-Allāh Darviš Jamāli, Siar al-ʿārefin, Delhi, 1311/1893-94, pp. 86-87, 95.

Ḡolām Moʿin-al-Din ʿAbd-Allāh, Maʾāṯer al-welāya, ms., author’s personal collection, I, fols. 346-47.

Ḡolām Sarvar, Ḵazinat al-aṣfiāʾ I, Lucknow, 1873, pp. 365-66.

Moḥammad-Akbar Ḥosayni, Jawāmeʿ al-kalem, Hyderabad, n.d., p. 134.

ʿAbd-al-Ḥaqq Moḥaddeṯ Dehlavi, Aḵbār al-aḵyār, Delhi, 1309/1892-93, pp. 109-13.

Naḏir Aḥmad, “Mawlānā Ḥamid Qalandar aur un kay chand ham ʿaṣr šoʿarā,” Fekr o naẓar (Aligarh) 2, March, 1965, pp. 1-34.

Raḥmān ʿAli, Taḏkera-ye ʿolamāʾ-e Hend, Lucknow, 1914, p. 53.

Rieu, Persian Manuscripts, Supplement, pp. 232-33.

Šams Serāj ʿAfif, Tāriḵ-e firuzšāhi, Calcutta, 1891, pp. 181-82.

(Khaliq Ahmad Nizami)

Originally Published: December 15, 2003

Last Updated: March 6, 2012

This article is available in print.
Vol. XI, Fasc. 6, p. 639