________________ : 422 Homage to Vaisali development of mystical doctrines but also with the propagation of their faith. That the Sufi saints and missionaries wore largely responsible for the peaceful penetration of Islam in India is now an admitted fact. But very little is known about the part played in this respect by Sufi saints of Bihar some of whom were outstanding personalities and of wide and farreaching influence. The little that has been written2 so far is mostly about the saints of south Bibar and little or no notice has been taken of those whose field of activities lay across the Ganges in north Blhar. Many of them belonged to the Shuttari Order of Sufis about which, unlike the Chishti, Qadri, Subrawardi, Naqshbandi and other Orders, nothing is practically known, especially to the English-reading public. A few lines in Encyclopaedia of Islam and the passing notice in the articles of the Indian Culture, about the introduction of this Order in India are not only inadequate but in some respects misleading. It is not a fact that "allusions to the Order in Sufi literature are rare," that "its headquarters in India was at Jaunpur", taat "the Indians could not accept him (pioneer of the Order) warmly for the reason of novelties introduced by him," that "we do not know the extent of his success in India", and that "he died in Malwa in 1406 A. D."8 Neither time and space nor the occasion permit a detailed consideration or even a bare outline of the theological position and theosophical principles of the Shuttari Order, but it is worthwhile to write something about life, work, and influence of one of the greatest of the Shuttari saints of India, who flourished in the fifteenth century in North Bihar, on the basis of materials locally available, particularly one of his own rare works which has come down to us in a manuscript form. iii. Shuttari Order of Sufism Shaikh Bayazid Taifur Bustami is said to have been the original exponent of the Shuttari principles. The first man to receive the title of Shuttar from his Pir, Shaikh Muhammad Arif Taifuri, who afterwards sent him to India, sometime in the early decades of the 8th Century A. H., was Shaikh Abdullah Shuttari, a lineal descendant of the celebrated Sufi 1. Sir Thomas Arnold, Preaching of Islam; Titus Murray, Indian Islam. 2. See the writer's papers in Journal of the Bihar Research Society . (Patna) and Bengal Past and Present (Calcutta). 3. This date, given in Khazinat-ul-Asfig and Khazinat-ul-Ansab, is obviously wrong, for Shaikh Qazin was initiated in the Shuttari Order by Shaikh Abdullah in 881 A. H. or 1486 A. D.
