1. Khwaja Ahrar was born in Samarkand, a city in Central Asia, to a Muslim family.
26 Facts About Khwaja Ahrar
1. 2.
Khwaja Ahrar was born to Khwaja Mehmood Shashi bin Khwaja Shihabuddin.
3.
Khwaja Ahrar was deeply involved in the social, political and economics activities of Transoxania.
4.
Khwaja Ahrar was born into a relatively poor yet highly spiritual family and, at the age of maturity, he was probably the richest person in the kingdom.
5.
Khwaja Ahrar was a close associate of all the leading dervishes of the time.
6.
Khwaja Ahrar learned and practiced the secrets of spirituality under his father and later under Khwaja Yaqub Charkhi.
7.
Khwaja Ahrar's paternal grandfather, Shahabuddin Shashi was a farmer and trader.
8.
Khwaja Ahrar's birth took place during the ramadan of 806 Hijri in village near Tashkent called Baghistan.
9.
Khwaja Ahrar's birth was accompanied by a number of miracles and many saints had predicted the coming of a saint.
10.
Khwaja Ahrar had two sons, Khwaja Khwajgan and Khwaja Yahya.
11.
Khwaja Ahrar took his spiritual bayah from Yaqub al-Charkhi.
12.
Khwaja Ahrar had many disciples but the most famous was the Sufi poet Mawlana Abdur Rahman Jami.
13.
Maulana Jami wrote a book dedicated to Khwaja Ahrar called Tuhfa tul Khwaja Ahrar.
14.
Khwaja Ahrar is mentioned in Jami's most famous work Yusuf and Zulekha.
15.
Khwaja Ahrar is known to have negotiated peace many times.
16.
Khwaja Ahrar bought a piece of cultivable land and began farming.
17.
Khwaja Ahrar's land produced a great deal of yield very fast.
18.
Khwaja Ahrar used to spend most of his money on philanthropy.
19.
The height of Khwaja Ahrar's career coincided with the cultural efflorescence of Herat during the reign of Sultan Husayn Bayqara.
20.
Khwaja Ahrar had many properties, including mosques and madrassas that were waqf.
21.
Khwaja Ahrar met him to discuss the condition of the people.
22.
However, the chief aid of the sultan had no interest, so Khwaja Ahrar told him "I have been commanded by God and His messenger to come here".
23.
At this, the Khwaja Ahrar wrote the name of the Sultan on the wall, erased it with his saliva, said "God will replace you with a King who is concerned for his people", and left.
24.
Khwaja Ahrar named Babur in his infancy as Zahiruddin Muhammad, literally 'Defender of Religion'.
25.
Khwaja Ahrar died when he was 89 years old in Samarqand in 1490.
26.
Khwaja Ahrar left a huge fortune, and his family continued his preachings.