Islamic Revivalism and Millennial Movements in the 16th and 17th Centuries: The Case of Aḥmad Sirhindī (1564–1624 CE)


A wave of eschatological ideologies and movements emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries across Europe and the Muslim world alike. With their messianic expectations and soteriological promises of deliverance from the apocalypse, they were sometimes introduced by rulers to legitimize and sustain their sovereignty, or conversely, by others as emancipative counter-ideologies to challenge the status quo. It is in such a context that the present paper revisits an example of the latter, the mystical thought of the highly influential and controversial figure of Aḥmad al-Fārūqī al-Sirhindī (1564–1624), the “Reformer of the Second Millenium.” By re-reading his Persian letters, maktūbāt, in the light of such a setting, I argue that his mysticism evinces a distinctively modern character, particularly by empowering the individual, the common believer. His is an historiographical project which seeks, at the turn of the second Islamic millennium, to correct a drastic decline that began immediately after the time of the Prophet Muḥammad. Sirhindī propounds a highly unconventional prophetology wherein it is possible for the common believer to strengthen the Prophet and indeed, even to partake in his prophetic mission. This mystic of Sirhind emphasizes God’s transcendence over His immanence, and the descent portion of the mystical journey over the ascent, that is, realizing man’s utter servanthood and returning to the world. In so doing, Sirhindī replaces otherworldly mystical piety with a mysticism that has considerable socio-political import, one in which the self- determined individual is endowed with substantial abilities and responsibilities. It is perhaps this self-empowering nature of Sirhindī’s message that, inter alia, facilitated the rapid spread of his teachings and that continues to preserve their relevance for and resonance among Muslims across the globe today.