Sayyid Muhammad Jaunpuri and the Mahdawis in Sindh

The last messianic movement which achieved some favour in Sindh was the movement launched by Sayyid Muhammad of Jaunpur (1443-1505). Affiliated to the Chishtiyya, Sayyid Muhammad Jaunpuri proclaimed himself to be the mahdi in 1495 while he was in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. He was then compelled to leave Ahmedabad and settled in Patan. The ulamas expelled him from Gujarat and he reached Sindh where he stayed for a while. He finally settled in Qandahar where he died in 1505. Even if his stay in Sindh was of short duration, he succeeded in converting a number of followers.

The stay of the mahdi in Sindh occurred under the Samma dynasty. It is not known how the Samma rulers welcomed him. In any case, prominent officials in the army and in the administration became his followers, including Shaykh Sadr al-Din, the spiritual mentor of the sovereign (MacLean, 2000, 244). The most famous of his followers was Qadi Qadan (1463- 1561), a famous poet to whom is attributed the oldest poetry in Sindhi. According to some authors, the Arghun dynasty was also influenced by the mahdi of Jaunpur. Later on, the Kalhora dynasty was also said to have Mahdawi affiliation but this is a controversial question. Ali Sher Qani in his Tuhfat al-kiram stated that Adam Shah Kalhora was a follower of the mahdi.

Sindh is nowadays one of the few places in the Indian subcontinent where Mahdawis can still be found. According to Derryl MacLean, who has worked on the topic for several years, the Sindhi Mahdawis are different from those of Balochistan, locally known as Zikris, Gujarat or Deccan. The Sindhi Mahdawis (unlike the Gujaratis or the Deccanis) have developed a distinct tradition quite separate from that in India. Mahdism in Sindh does not become a firqah but simply a tariqah, and in a very Sindhi way becomes a mystical choice, increasingly of majzubs. The Sindhis would have been attracted by the Ibn Arabism, the Insan-i kamil concept, and especially the original Mahdawi sense of a literary apocalyptic, where Mahdawis play language games unleashed by the approach of the end time.

(Sindh through History and Representations - French Contributions to Sindhi Studies, Edited by Michel Boivin, Oxford University Press - 2008)