Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan (1200–1550 A.D.) c4.s2.t3.8.3

c4.s2.t3.8.3

They similarly disapproved of the life and manners of the Muslim aristocracy, but they were too much afraid of the power of the ruling classes to offend them by strong opposition or even by honest criticism. They had very little to give to the common people which was not inconsistent with the accepted version of the orthodox Islam, and thus exposed them to the charge of heresy or heterodoxy. So the Sufi works have little use for our present purposes. I have, however, used the Zakhirat-ul-muluk of Hamadani (died 1384 A.D.) and the Saha, if of Shaikh Sadr-ud-din (died 1536 A.D.) to represent the Sufi viewpoint. An orthodox Muslim is, however, somewhat different. Even if he is not interested in the life of 'the infidels', he is interested in keeping the Muslims pure from their taint; he is not a little interested in securing the reward of the next world by converting an infidel to Islam. It is somewhat difficult to draw a line between a Sufi and an orthodox Muslim in practical religion except in extreme cases when a Sufi superimposes some mystic and occult doctrine on Islam and stretches the sense and meaning of both Qur'an and the Tradition to meet his ends, and the orthodox refuses to go beyond the literal interpretation of the Muslim dogma. Composed on the orthodox lines are two books, the *Matla-ul-Anwar* of Amir Khusrau and the *Tuhfa-i-Nasa'ih* of Yusuf Gada. The book of Khusrau, which I have already mentioned, is a bitter exposition of the heterodox manners of his age.