The Works of Badr al-Dīn Kashmīrī: Historicizing Hagiography in the 16th Century

This paper examines the works of Badr al-Dīn Kashmīrī as examples of the new styles of hagiographical writing emerging in Central Asia during the 16th century. Though clearly linked with important developments in the organization and competitive activity of the Sufi communities that typically sponsored hagiographical production, the emergence of these new styles was also marked by the imprint of individual authors with a distinctive vision, and plan, for deploying their literary and intellectual talents. Such is the case with Badr al-Dīn Kashmīrī, who left his native land and came to Central Asia in the early 1560s, attaching himself to the famous ‘dynasty’ of Naqshbandī masters and landholders, the Jūybārī shaykhs of Bukhārā; he produced a substantial body of works, lauding his Jūybārī patrons as well as ʻAbdullāh Khān b. Iskandar, the monarch linked with them, and these works are distinctive for blurring, or ignoring, the boundaries between historical and hagiographical writings of earlier times. Chief among them are the Rawżat al-riżvān, a hagiography devoted to the Jūybārī shaykhs; the Sirāj al-ṣāliḥīn, the life of another saint linked initiatically with the Jūybārī house; and what appear two redactions (with shifting titles) of a still larger hagiographical compendium also focused on his Jūybārī masters and patrons. These works share the broader trend, evident in other hagiographies from this era, of devoting entire large works to individual Sufi leaders, but they are marked also by the distinctive historical consciousness of the author; he portrayed the saints he memorialized as figures intimately engaged with the political, economic, and social life of their times, bolstering his presentation not only with rich narrative material, but with a ‘documentary’ foundation as well. The paper will situate Badr al-Dīn’s works in the context of other hagiographies of this era that display some of the same features, and will highlight the elements, of structure and content, that distinguish his works from others.