Shah Jalal
Jalāl Mujarrad Kunyāʾī (), popularly known as Shah Jalal (), was a celebrated Sufi figure of Bengal. His name is often associated with the Muslim conquest of Sylhet and the Spread of Islam into the region, part of a long history of interactions between the Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia. Various complexes and religious places have been named after him, including the largest airport in Bangladesh, Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport and numerous mosques around the United Kingdom. Birthplace and origin Jalal was said to have been born on May 25, 1271. Various traditions and historical documents differ in his place of birth, and there is a gap of two centuries between the life of the saint and literature which attempted to identify his origin. Local ballads and devotees continue to refer to him as Shah Jalal Yemeni, connecting him to Greater Yemen. An inscription from circa 1505 AD, during the reign of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah, refers to Shah Jalal with the suffix Kunyāʾī. Towards the end of this century, in 1571, Shah Jalal's biography was recorded in Shaikh ʿAli Sher Bangālī's Sharḥ Nuzhat al-Arwāḥ (Commentary on the excursion of the souls). The author was a descendant of one of Shah Jalal's senior companions, Nūr al-Hudā, and his account was also used by his teacher Muḥammad Ghawth Shattārī in his Gulzar-i-Abrār of 1613. According to this account, Shah Jalal was a Turkestan-born Bengali and a spiritual disciple of Ahmad Yasawi. Muḥammad Nāṣiruddīn Ḥaydar composed a full biography of Shah Jalal titled Suhayl-i-Yaman Tārīkh-i-Jalālī in 1859, which referred to him as Yemeni. Although this was composed 5 centuries after Jalal's death, Haydar's work consulted two now-lost manuscripts; Risālah (Message) by Muḥīuddīn Khādim from 1711 and Rawḍah as-Salāṭīn (Garden of the Sultans) from 1721. A number of scholars have claimed that the suffix from the Husain Shahi inscription refers to the city of Qūniyah (Konya) in modern-day Turkey (then in the Sultanate of Rum), and they stated further that Jalal may have possibly moved to Yemen in his later life. Others have linked the suffix to the village of Kaninah in Yemen's Hadhramaut region, and some even to Kenya in East Africa. Early life and education His mother, Syeda Haseenah Fatimah, and his father, Sayyid Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, were descendants of the Quraysh tribe in Makkah. His mother was the daughter of Jalaluddin Surkh-Posh Bukhari. Jalal's father was a cleric and contemporary of the Sufi mystic Rumi and died five years after his son's birth. Jalal was educated and raised by his maternal uncle, Syed Ahmad Kabir Suhrawardi. in Makkah. He excelled in his studies; became a hafiz and mastered fiqh. He became a makhdoom, teacher of Sunnah and, for performing prayers in solitary milieu and leading a secluded life as an ascetic, al Mujarrad was post-fixed to his name. It is claimed he achieved spiritual perfection (Kamaliyyat) after 30 years of study, practice and meditation. Travel to South Asia Jalal's maternal uncle, Syed Ahmad Kabir, gave him