Waris Ali Shah

Sayed Waris Ali Shah (1817–1905) was an Indian Sufi saint of Dewa, Barabanki, and the founder of the Warsi Sufi order.¹ The Urdu article gives his birth in 1232 AH (1817) at Dewa Sharif and likewise names him founder of the Warsiyya silsila.²

His father was Sayed Qurban Ali Shah, whose tomb is also at Dewa.¹ From an early age he showed an inclination for a religious life, and the Urdu article describes him as a child of unusual understanding in religious matters.¹²

As a boy he attached himself to Khadim Ali Shah, a dervish of Golaganj, Lucknow, and remained with him until the latter's death in 1832–33, when Waris Ali Shah was sixteen years old.¹ The Urdu article states the relationship in its full form: he became Khadim Ali Shah's murid in boyhood and remained his murid and khalifa until the shaykh's death, and his own affiliation was with the Qadiri and Chishti schools of Sufism, standing in the traditional Chishti silsila.² He travelled widely, especially to Europe and the West, and admitted people to his spiritual order; he had a liberal view and permitted his followers to follow Sufism without changing their names or their religion on accepting his guidance.¹ His followers were drawn from several faiths, and among his disciples the articles name the poet Bedam Shah Warsi and the Barabanki landowner and pan-Islamist politician Mushir Husain Qidwai.¹ His sayings were collected by his follower Khuda Bakhsh Sheikh in the Malfuzat, and the same follower's Tohmat-ul-Asfiya is his biography.¹

He went to Mecca for pilgrimage many times.¹ During his travels in Europe he visited the Sultan of Turkey and Otto von Bismarck in Berlin, and he may also have travelled to England and had an audience with Queen Victoria.¹

He died in 1905 at Dewa — on 7 April 1905 by the English article, which equates it with 1 Safar 1323 AH, and on 29 Muharram 1323 AH (5 April 1905) by the Urdu article — and his shrine is at Dewa.¹² The death anniversary of his father, the Dewa Mela, is observed in October–November and attended by nearly a million Muslims and Hindus, and another annual fair is held at his own tomb on 1 Safar.¹ Wikidata records his birth in 1817 and death in 1905 at Dewa.³

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