The Naqshbandi reformer titled "Renewer of the Second Millennium," known for opposing Mughal religious syncretism and for a distinctive rethinking of Sufi metaphysics.
Life
Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624), a Naqshbandi Sufi of the Mughal era, is honored by his followers as the Mujaddid Alf Thani, the renewer of Islam's second millennium. He is remembered for letters urging a return to the sharia and for critiquing the syncretism associated with Akbar's court, and for advancing "unity of witness" (wahdat al-shuhud) as an alternative reading to Ibn Arabi's "unity of being." His role and views are debated by historians — as principled reform or as sectarian assertion — and his exact influence on Mughal policy is contested; the perspectives are noted without verdict. His Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi legacy spread widely across Asia.