1. Shah Jalal's name is often associated with the Muslim conquest of Sylhet and the Spread of Islam into the region, part of a long history of interactions between the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia.
22 Facts About Shah Jalal
1. 2.
Local ballads and devotees continue to refer to him as Shah Jalal Yemeni, connecting him to Greater Yemen Specifically from the Hadhramaut region.
3.
Muhammad Nasiruddin Haydar composed a full biography of Shah Jalal titled Suhayl-i-Yaman Tarikh-i-Jalali in 1859, which referred to him as Yemeni.
4.
Shah Jalal's mother was the daughter of Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Bukhari.
5.
Shah Jalal's father was a cleric and contemporary of the Sufi mystic Rumi and died five years after his son's birth.
6.
Shah Jalal was educated and raised by his maternal uncle, Syed Ahmad Kabir Suhrawardi.
7.
Shah Jalal excelled in his studies; became a hafiz and mastered fiqh.
8.
Shah Jalal became a makhdoom, teacher of Sunnah and, for performing prayers in solitary milieu and leading a secluded life as an ascetic, al Mujarrad was post-fixed to his name.
9.
Shah Jalal instructed him to choose to settle and spread Dawah in any place in India where the soil exactly matches that which he gave him in smell and colour.
10.
Shah Jalal journeyed eastward from Makkah and met many great scholars and Sufi mystics.
11.
Jalal came across Sheikh Chashni Pir, a pedologist who would check the soil of the places that Shah Jalal would visit in order to find the matching soil given by Sheikh Ahmad Kabir.
12.
Shah Jalal passed through Baghdad and was present there during the time of the murder of the last Abbasid caliph Al-Musta'sim in 1258.
13.
Shah Jalal reached Uch in the Punjab, where he and many of his companions were initiated into the Sufi order of Suhrawardiyya.
14.
Shah Jalal was joined by many other disciples throughout his journey.
15.
Shah Jalal passed through Delhi where he was made a guest of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya.
16.
At the meeting in 1345, Ibn Battuta noted that Shah Jalal was tall and lean, fair in complexion and lived by the mosque in a cave, where his only item of value was a goat he kept for milk, butter, and yogurt.
17.
Shah Jalal observed that the companions of the Shah Jalal were foreign and known for their strength and bravery.
18.
The meeting between Ibn Battuta and Shah Jalal is described in his Arabic travelogue, Rihla.
19.
Shah Jalal was buried in Sylhet in his dargah, which is located in a neighbourhood now known as Dargah Mahalla.
20.
Shah Jalal appointed his closest companion, Haji Muhammad Yusuf to be the khadim of his dargah and Yusuf's descendants, the Sareqaum family, continue to have this role.
21.
Shah Jalal's shrine is famous in Sylhet and throughout Bangladesh, with hundreds of Muslims devotees visiting daily.
22.
Shah Jalal is buried next to four of his companions.