Muhammad Ghawth


Muhammad Ghawth Gwaliyari was a 16th-century Sufi master of the Shattari order and Sufi saint, a musician, and the author of Jawahir-i Khams.

Biography

Muhammad Ghawth was born in Gwalior, India in 1500; the name Gwaliyari means "of Gwalior". One of his ancestors was Fariduddin Attar of Nishapur. In the preface of al-Jawahir al-Khams, he states that he wrote the book when he was 25 years old. In 1549 he travelled to Gujarat, when he was 50 years old. He stayed in Ahmedabad for ten years where he founded Ek Toda Mosque and preached.
Ghawth translated the Amrtakunda from Sanskrit to Persian as the Bahr al-Hayat, introducing to Sufism a set of yoga practices. According to the scholar Carl W. Ernst, in this "translation", Ghawth intentionally reframed these practices with great subtlety to identify "points of contact between the terminologies of Yoga and Sufism".
Ghawth died in Gwalior in 1562. His followers believed that he ascended to heaven and from there was able to direct help down to them; and further, that he was the "axial saint, the pivot of the universe".

Works