Persecution and Circumspection in Shaṭṭārī Sufism

What happens to a Sufi order when one of its foremost leaders is persecuted and charged with heresy? This question, which may be framed with respect to a number of Sufi leaders over the course of Islamic history, has a special interest in connection with the Shattari Sufi order. This group, which was established in the South Asian subcontinent in the late fifteenth century, had a colorful history that was closely intertwined with the political fortunes of the dynasties of northern India. Its membership spread to western India and the Deccan, and then via the Hejaz it was exported to Southeast Asia. The Shattari order was known especially for its emphasis on meditative techniques, and this gave it a characteristic style. Most Sufi orders defined themselves by initiatic lineages that went through Junayd, the Baghdadian master of "sober" Sufism. In contrast, the Shattaris derived their authority from chains of transmission that went to the Khorasanian ecstatic, Bayazid Bistami. The extent and impact of the Shattari order has not yet been adequately assessed; most of the texts that detail the history of the order are unpublished.1 Little scholarly work has been directed to this topic; a few articles written several decades ago focused on Shattari activity in northern India, and some work has also been done on Shattaris in the Deccan.2 A single dissertation, written in Aligarh in 1963, has attempted a reconstruction