Shah Niamatullah (R)2

Shah Niamatullah (R)2 was one of the renowned Qadiriya saints of Bengal in the 17th century. His original name was Saiyid Jamaluddin Muhammad. His father Saiyid Ataullah was a very religious man. Saiyid Musharraf Hussain, his grandfather, came to India from Hansi in Persia during the reign of akbar and settled at Karnal where Shah Niamatullah (R) was born. The exact date of his birth is not known. Maulana Ubaidul Haq in his book Bangladesher Pir Auliyagan hypothetically places the date of his birth in between 1565 and 1570 AD. He, at the initial stage of his career, joined the Mughal army. But subsequently, deciding to dedicate himself completely to spiritual attainments, he gave up the service and went to Hyderabad to become a disciple of the saint Muhammad Shah. He meditated in the solitude for about sixteen years, travelled widely and performed the Hajj. Returning to India he settled in rajmahal and married there. Prince shah shuja, the viceroy of Bengal, showed him much honour. The saint then repaired to Firuzpur, a place half a mile northwest of the chhota sona mosque and infested by wild animals. There he fixed up his residence on a high land.

Shah Niamatullah led a simple life. He travelled like a mendicant and people had little idea about his attainments and wisdom. He had no attraction for court life. Shah Shuja, a faithful murid (disciple) of the saint, built for his murshid (divine guide) the tah-khanah (hot weather building) near the khanqah at Firuzpur. shahjahan had issued a farman granting the saint 400 bighas of land as Madad-i-Maash by which he maintained a mosque and a Khanqah. aurangzeb, by another farman issued in 1076 AH/ 1664, granted him 5000 rupees from Pargana Dar Sarak in Sarkar Jannatabad. The saint died in 1077 AH/ 1665 AD.

Niamatullah was called in Persian bahar-i-ulum (ocean of learning). He rendered a Persian version of the Holy Quran and named it Tafsir-i-Jahangiri. He was also a poet of repute. [Mosharraf Hussain Bhuiyan]