Makhdum-i A'zam

Makhdum-i A'zam — in full Sayyid Ahmad Khwajagi ibn Jalal ad-Din Kasani Dahbidi — was born around 1461 in the town of Kasan (today Kosonsoy) in the Fergana Valley; some sources give 1463–1464. He is known by the epithet “Makhdum-i A'zam” (“the greatest master”), and the name Dahbidi comes from the village of Dahbid, where he spent his last years. His genealogy is traced to the family of the Prophet.

He received his first education in Kasan, then went to Tashkent and entered the Naqshbandi path under Muhammad Qazi (d. 1516), a pupil of Khwaja Ubaydullah Ahrar. Some sources say that in 1503 he moved to Bukhara, where he founded a lodge for Sufis, and that he also preached in Akhsikat.

After the Shaybanids took over Transoxiana, the ruler of Samarkand, Janibek Sultan, invited him to Samarkand and granted him the revenue of the nearby village of Dahbid. According to tradition, he first planted ten willows there, which is said to explain the village’s name (“dah” — ten, “bed” — willow), and later laid out a garden of more than 20 hectares.

After his teacher Muhammad Qazi died in 1516, Makhdum-i A'zam was acknowledged as head of the Naqshbandi order in Transoxiana. He had great influence at the court of Ubaydullah Khan (d. 1539) in Bukhara, and Shaybanid sultans and governors regarded him as their spiritual guide. According to the sources, Babur dedicated quatrains to him and Makhdum-i A'zam wrote a treatise about Babur, “Boburiya”.

He wrote about thirty works in Persian, dealing with the rules of the Sufi community, the practice of dhikr and sama, and the relations between shaykhs and rulers; one of them, a book of counsel for rulers, is addressed to Ubaydullah Khan. Most of his treatises were gathered in the collection “Majmu'a ar-rasa'il” (“Collection of Treatises”), and many manuscripts are kept at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan.

Makhdum-i A'zam died in Dahbid in 1542 and was buried there. The sources say he had thirteen sons (ten or twelve in some sources), whom he appointed as khalifas of the order; his descendants, the Makhdumzadas, later gained great influence in Eastern Turkestan. The memorial complex around his grave was restored in 1996–1998.