Shamsud Din Tabrizi and Nasirud Din Cheragh Dehlavi

Dear Farishtah,
That makes two of us on the path of discovery. Thank you for the beautiful picture of the dargah of Hazrat Cheragh Dehlavi, the master of Khawaja Gaisu Daraz and disciple and successor of Shah Nizamud din Auliya ( who succeded Farid Ganj Shak'r). There are three interesting commonalities between Nasirud din Cheragh Dehlavi and Shamsud Din Tabrizi, even though they lived about 100 years apart from each other.

1. Both had spiritual proclivity from birth--that is both were born Vali, with a divinely gifted potential for the metaphysical and the esoteric.

2.Both were dedicated to life of self denial. They ate little, preferring to stay in a
state of fasting.

3.Both survived almost fatal attacks, born of sheer jealousy against their spiritual position.

Yet there was a marked difference between the two luminaries of their time. While Cheragh Dehlavi received ' kharqa ' from his teacher and murshed Hazrat Mehboob-i-Ilahi, Shah Nizam ud Din Dehlavi), Shams-i Tabriz did not receive kharqa from any living saint or teacher. He was given the kharqa by the Prophet (s) himself in a dream, according to his statement in Maqalat-i Shams --the record of his conversatons with Rumi written by Sultan Vald, son of Mawlana.
Nasir Shamsi

In a message dated 2/22/2005 3:36:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, farishtah@earthlink.net writes

<< It is wonderful that you have been called to do this work. Most of my
research in recent years has involved digging into my own Chishti
initiatic lineage and, while Mevlana and Shams are an integral part of
all of the Sufi lineages and, in fact, the heart of humanity, I've not
been able to turn my attention to either of them past the poetry and a
certain level of attunement. Thank you for sharing this with me -- and
I'm looking forward to your book!
I'm traveling again in connection with my work and, after tomorrow,
I'll be more limited in access to email, but I hope we can keep in
touch from time to time....>>